Queenverse 01: God Save the Queen
by Aadler
Summary: Uneasy lies the head. Totally.
1. Part 1

**God Save the Queen**  
by SRoni and Aadler  
**Copyright June 2004 (SRoni)  
Revised for collaboration December 2006 (Aadler)**

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**Disclaimer:** Characters from _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Television, the WB, and UPN.

[Credit and acknowledgment: This story was inspired — to a point — by Mediancat's "Dancing with Myself" and its sequel, "Dancing in the Dark". However, the world presented here is not connected to his.]

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Part I

_Once upon a time, there was a princess. She knew she was a princess, because everybody told her so. She was born to reign, and she studied to get ready for it. When the time came, she assumed her rightful place with an ease that left other pretenders to the throne writhing in envy and fury. A princess no longer: now, she was the queen._

_No surprise that the universe should realign to show her just how special she really was, to make her something beyond mere royalty. No surprise that she should gain a consort as extraordinary as she was, a creature of star-crossed myth. No surprise that her realm should become the stage where she and her lover played out the greatness that was theirs by right._

_No, the surprise was when it all went to hell._

_And then got worse._

~ – ~ – ~

She swept through the halls, oblivious to her surroundings, a figure of dark preoccupation and unfocused wrath. No one scrambled from her path, but there was a concerted effort to avoid getting _into_ her path. Something like that, well, you just didn't want to do it.

She didn't notice, aware of nothing beyond the turmoil of her thoughts. How? How could she decide? If she chose one course of action, Willow died. The other, Xander died. If she just sat down and cried — which was what she wanted right now more than anything else — they both died. And, given the light-hearted viciousness of their captor, that might happen no matter what she did.

Was this as bad as it could get? No, the bad was just beginning: she couldn't go to Giles with this. It had been weeks, but he still hadn't recovered from what had happened to Miss Calendar; The Man With a Plan had become The Man With a Mission. Give him a target for all that bottled rage, and he would want to go nuclear: scorched earth, no caution and no holding back and no mercy, kill them all while he knew where to find them. Worst case, the whole group could break apart in recriminations and competing priorities; even the best case might lose Xander or Willow, and she couldn't make herself choose between them.

Nor was she entirely comfortable at the thought of presenting this situation to the others. There had been questions lately about her judgment, about where _her_ priorities were, and there was no absolute guarantee that she could get them to let her do this the way it had to be done. She didn't blame them (much), but it still meant she couldn't predict how they would react. And so much depended on what she, and they, decided to do …

Think. _Think._ She had a little time to work with, and she needed to get her head clear and figure out her next move. When Angel had called to deliver his taunting challenge, he had said the show started at nightfall. (He'd thrown in other stuff as well, laughing at her inability to answer him as he deserved; she'd been summoned to the office for a call supposedly from her mother, and been forced to nod and keep her tone level and give safe replies to prevent the office staff from catching on. For all his pretensions to artistry, he had become exactly the kind of small-minded bully who would revel in such petty triumphs … and the only good part of this God-awful mess was that Xander wasn't around to rag on her for giving Angel a "big happy", as he put it, and turning him from soulful-and-brooding to a guy who thought barbecued pets made a nifty greeting card.)

What about calling Kendra? _that_ was something Angel wouldn't be expecting … No, it wouldn't help, this would be over before Kendra could make it to Sunnydale. Besides, the last time she had tried to talk about it, Kendra had said the same thing as when they first met: "He's a vampire. He deserves to die." Well, _duhh!_ Angel the sadistic torturer, sure. But how to get him without wiping out the Angel who had spent, like, eighty years trying to make things right?

If it had to be done, she'd do it. In fact, she'd spent months now _trying_ to do it. But it should be done by someone who would remember, and mourn, the man who had been there before the monster returned.

She hated being the damn Slayer! Her life had been so simple once: clothes, guys, spreading misery among the socially untouchable … Now, instead of being the most popular girl in school, she was way down the road to least popular. And even if some gooney good fairy gave her the power to go back, she still wouldn't be able to do it. She had seen too much. She had lost too much.

She forced her mind out of that blind alley and back to the basic problem. If she let Willow die, Oz would never forgive her. If she let Xander die, Buffy would never forgive her. She didn't have to deal with _that_ yet, there hadn't been time to tell either of them, and she wasn't looking forward to it …

Wait a minute.

The class bell had rung while she was flipping around with her mind in dark places, and now she hurried through the halls with new purpose. There, yes: Buffy, just closing her locker, she must be running late … which was good, it meant there was no one around to overhear. "Hey, Destiny Girl, I need some help."

Buffy sighed, and reached into her notebook. "Yeah, I tuned in to that when you didn't come back from the office. I have the class notes here, so if you can photocopy them before school lets out —"

"Not that. Well, sure, I'll take the notes. But it's about Xander."

Buffy's eyes went wary and a little cold. "What _about_ Xander, Cordelia?"

The Slayer leaned wearily back against the row of lockers. Where was Midol when you needed it? Insane though it might seem, she and Buffy might actually have become close if not for Xander; as it was, the girl never could forget that she had been (to all outward appearance) Xander's second choice, and she watched like a hawk for any sign that Cordelia might change her mind about going kissy-face with the Xandman.

"Angel has him," she told Buffy, and saw the suspicious look instantly replaced by one of dread. "And Willow, too, somehow Angel's crew managed to pull a snatch in daylight —"

"Where?" Buffy broke in. "I mean, why are you _here,_ you should be out tearing through every vamp hidey-hole in Sunnydale right now! The longer Angelus has them —"

"I know," Cordelia said, interrupting just as Buffy had done. "But it isn't going to be that simple. He's keeping them at separate locations, so we can't just —"

"How do you know?" Buffy demanded.

_"Will you let me tell the story?"_ Cordelia snapped. Buffy drew back a step; even the L.A. golden girl didn't treat a Slayer's wrath casually, maybe because she remembered how potent it could be. Cordelia shook her head. "Sorry. Mondo tension, and nothing to kill. Look, I know because Angel called to gloat. Another one of his head games."

"When will he learn that just doesn't _work_ on you?" Buffy wondered. "All right, I'm calm now." Cordelia gave her a Look, and she amended, "Okay, not really. But I can deal. What else did he tell you? "

"Like I said, head games. He actually let me know where he has Xander, some abandoned, run-down old mansion. Problem is, if I go there to get Xander — and that's if Angel is even telling the truth about where they have him — they kill Willow."

"So why bother to tell us where Xander is?" Buffy asked … and then answered before Cordelia could. "Because he's a sadist. Because he likes to rub it in, make it hurt. This one's a win-win for him, I can see it. If you go after Xander, we lose Willow, and split apart blaming each other. You don't go after him, we just all sit and stew on being helpless." She shot the Slayer a look. "He has to know that won't hold us for long."

"It isn't meant to," Cordelia agreed. "It's just a little side-torture, something to whet his appetite. The main course is something else. He'll call just after dark to give us Willow's location … but if anybody but me shows up for a rescue, Angel has them both killed. And whichever one I go to save, they kill the other one." Her laugh was sharp, bitter. "Getting the picture? No matter where I go, I get to fight through impossible odds, knowing one of my friends dies at the other location. Classic Angelus, something straight out of the Watchers' Diaries."

Buffy was clutching her notebook, and her face was beginning to trend toward pale. Though she had been willing to accept Angel's help, Back In The Day, she'd never been entirely comfortable around him once she discovered his true nature … and now, with his soul on indefinite hiatus and Buffy's Slayerness firmly in the FORMER column, she didn't hide the fact that he gave her the total wig. Even so, she spoke steadily. "Or maybe he'll let you do your best, and then kill them both anyway," she pointed out.

This was something Cordelia had already considered, though she hadn't mentioned it (who _said_ she didn't know the meaning of the word 'tact'?), but she suddenly realized she'd been wrong. "No, he won't," she said grimly. "That'd let me off the hook, wouldn't it? He'll stick to what he promised, just so I have to live with knowing I sentenced one of them to death."

"So what do you want from me?" Buffy demanded, her voice savage. "Help you make a choice? You know which way I'd go."

"No, I want you to help me _cheat_ the bastard." Cordelia saw hope flare in Buffy's face, and went on, "Look, I know how hard you've worked at training with Giles, even though you're not a Slayer anymore. You're better than me when it comes to technique —" (never mind that she no longer had supernatural speed or strength or the ability to heal from crippling injuries) "— and you're the best fighter of all the Slay Friends. I know how Angel's mind works. The whole point on this is that if I save one, I kill the other. He'll have it set up so that whichever place I go, I'll get to take my best shot, and if I get through, _then_ he'll have a call go to the other location."

"So you're wanting us to try and hit both places at the same time," Buffy said. "It won't work, though, you said they'll kill their prisoners if anybody but you shows up."

"Right," Cordelia replied. "So it has to be me in both places."

Buffy's eyes went blank, and Cordelia could all but see the thoughts racing behind them. The two girls began talking at once.

"You're taller than me —"

"— but you wear those big clunky heels —"

"— hair, there's time to get mine dyed dark —"

"— or a wig, my mother has one you could use —"

"— I'd have to wear your clothes —"

"— and weapons, lots of weapons, you'll be facing heavy odds and you don't have the Slayer deal going for you now —"

"It won't work," Buffy said. The eagerness faded from her expression, and she slumped. "Even if we go in at the same time, no way can we guarantee to win at the same time. We'd be racing each other, and the loser would be the one to blame for whoever died. It still comes out the same, only the guilt is different."

Damn it! "No," Cordelia said. "No, I won't let him do this to us. There has to be a way." She thought hard, all her force and focus directed at finding an opening that could be exploited. "Look, you remember the vamp who stole that Tupac book from the library for Spike? the little guy with glasses? Well, the other night —"

"Oh!" Buffy said abruptly. Cordelia gave her a _Huh?_ look, and she said, "Sorry, I just got it. The Du Lac book. And it was somebody else who stole it, you're talking about the guy who took the Du Lac _cross_ from that mausoleum."

Cordelia dismissed it with a wave. "Whatever. The thing is, a couple of nights ago I spotted him maybe a block from that factory where the Anointed One used to hang out. We know they're working out of at least two locations right now, and vampires aren't long on originality, so I'm thinking they may have re-opened one of their old lairs —"

"I get it," Buffy said. "If _that's_ where they're keeping Willow, we don't have to wait for Angel's call, we can get a jump on him."

Cordelia nodded. "Right. So how about this: I'll get myself set up at the mansion, and you check out the factory. Do it ninja-style, sneak in slow and careful. If there _are_ any vamps there, avoid contact, work at finding Willow. Once you do, call me on my cell, and I'll start tearing through the mansion. Then, when you're ready, you hit 'em with everything you have, death in all directions, toss some of the weapons to Willow and try to hold out."

"Me and Willow," Buffy said without enthusiasm.

Cordelia ignored it, she was riding the wave. "We'll set it up so Giles and the others are waiting, call them right after you call me. He'll lead the rest of the Slay Friends in after you and Willow … you can even wait till they start their attack, _then_ jump out to help Willow, the vamps in the factory will be fighting on two fronts at once. And if we get it done quick enough, finish before sundown, you can all retreat into daylight where they can't follow you."

"Why not me at the mansion?" Buffy insisted. "No offense, Cordy, but … you don't really play well with others. I mean, you're a one-woman wrecking crew, but teamwork isn't your strong suit. Willow could keep up with you a lot better than Xander could, and be a lot more help to you, and the Slay Friends could fight their way to us a lot faster at the mansion than they could at the factory." She hesitated, then added the words that both of them knew were waiting. "He needs me. I have to be there for him."

Still doing her Xander-obsession thing! Cordelia clamped down on the bite-her-head-off impulse that struggled to get out. "Maybe. We can talk about that as we go. But I really think you'll have to take the factory, it's just so much easier to sneak around there. The mansion is better for smash-and-grab … and hey, you know Cordy, mindless destruction is even more fun than shopping!" It took concentration, but she forced her voice to be gentle. "I'll be careful with him, Buffy. I promise."

Buffy didn't look pleased, but she seemed to decide not to push the argument just yet. "If we try it the way you said, there's no reason for me to dress like you."

"Probably we should anyway." Cordelia headed for the parking lot, and Buffy followed automatically. "I mean, if anything goes wrong and they spot you, they have to see the Slayer or they'll kill their prisoner. We'd still be back in the race you talked about, but at least we'd have a _chance_ of saving them both."

As Cordelia pulled her convertible away from the school and started for her home, Buffy asked, "Shouldn't we tell the others where we're going? They'll need to know about this plan of yours, and we don't want them to think we got snatched, too. Oz must be worried sick about Willow —"

"I haven't told anybody else yet," Cordelia said. Buffy stared at her, and she went on. "You're right, Oz would want to do whatever it took to get Willow back safe, same as you are about Xander. But the rest of them? Marcie's still holding a grudge against me from my snob-princess days. Nancy doesn't care which side she argues on, as long as she can keep an argument going, and Tucker will back her up on anything she says. Owen's a sweetie, but he'll follow whoever was the last one to give orders. And Giles …" She glanced over toward the former Slayer. "What do you think Giles would do, if he knew where Angel and Drusilla might be staying?"

Buffy actually shuddered. "He'd burn the whole place to the ground," she said. "And convince himself we could get Xander out in time." She looked to Cordelia. "They'll have to know sooner or later. I mean, they're supposed to be my backup, and that doesn't work if they don't know where I am."

"You're right," Cordelia said. "But we'll want to time it so they don't have a chance to object. Too early and they could come up with ideas of their own … and we might not like those ideas."

Buffy nodded reluctant acceptance; clearly, details would still have to be worked out, but they'd come to that in due course. "You've always liked to get your own way," she said, "but I never knew you could be so sneaky. Is this one of those head-cheerleader things?"

Cordelia gave that a _pfft!_ "Nope, it's straight out of Dealing With Parents 101. You know, the part where it's easier to get forgiveness than permission."

Once she would have followed that with something about 'letting them deal with a fat accomplice'. She knew perfectly well that it was _fait accompli,_ but show too much knowledge and people would start thinking you were a nerd. It had been months since she'd cared about such considerations, however … plus, the mention of parents had pushed her mood even more to the somber.

It was a quarter to two when they arrived at her house. Luckily, her mother wasn't home. Cordelia just wasn't up for another lecture right now, and Mom had gotten really big on the mother-daughter involvement thing after Daddy 'disappeared' …

Before that, she'd loved being the Slayer. 'Queen C' by day, the Chosen One (or whatever) by night, and naturally she ruled at both. She and Angel, side by side, scourge of the netherworld … What hurt most, looking back, was that she still didn't really have a clue as to when Spike had made her father a vampire. Carlton Chase was seldom home before dark anyhow, too many connections to be made and deals to be finalized (and secretaries to meet after hours? those were the rumors, at least). It could have been weeks before Spike decided the time was right for them to strike, though she really didn't see him having that kind of patience.

The invaders had hit too quickly and ruthlessly for her to have any time to wonder how they had gotten into her house without invitation. She had battled from room to room, herding her father ahead of her while she fought a vicious rear-guard action, and she would have been one very surprised, very dead May Queen if Angel hadn't slashed his way into shouting distance just as her father, behind her, had let his demon face come out and gone for her throat.

Some vampires dusted faster than others. It never took more than four or five seconds, but sometimes they had time to get out a few words. Carlton Chase went almost instantly, but she would forever choose to believe she had heard him say, "Good girl," before he shimmered into ash around the stake she had thrust reflexively into his heart. Cordelia had gone insane then, killing eight more vampires in the next twenty seconds before the rest fled in terror, leaving her only to scream and weep.

She had thought that was the worst it could ever be. Wrong, wrong, wrong. She had clung to Angel, grief and guilt and pain and the aftermath of battle bringing down the last barriers between them, and fallen asleep in his arms. She awoke alone in the wrecked, dust-strewn house, and even then she didn't know that the nightmare had only begun, that she had lost the two men she loved most in the same terrible night.

So, no more best-of-both-worlds. She was pure Slayer now, and Harmony reigned in her place, laughing and making little quips about falling off the social ladder whenever they passed in the halls. Fine, she could have it, and Buffy was welcome to try and keep up the separate day/ night lifestyle thing. Cordelia had other priorities … like working out a going-away party for Spike that involved chains, a propane torch, holy water in a perfume spritzer, and mirrors to direct the sunlight _just so_.

He was going to learn the hard way: you _don't_ mess with the queen.


	2. Part 2

Part II

While Cordelia headed directly for her closets, Buffy called the library to leave a message. Not a major alert, not yet, just a general heads-up to let them know that something was in the works, and they should get together once classes ended and await further news. Cordelia could tell from Buffy's side of the conversation that she was talking to Tucker (creepy little ferret, but he was fast becoming their expert on demon psychology, even if he was a total waste when it came to actual fighting); he took the message and promised he would pass it on to Giles, and Buffy ended the call.

"I don't like leaving them in the dark," Buffy said as she set the phone down. "Once they start spreading the word, and can't reach Xander and Willow … I wish there was another way."

"If you can come up with one, feel free to let me know," Cordelia answered. "Right now I'm thinking we'll put together a text message with all the on-point info, and shoot it to Nancy's cell phone when we're ready for them to come get you." Aside from Buffy and Cordelia, Nancy was the only one of the group with her own phone. "Something before then, too, I guess," she added after a moment's consideration. "A little warning to load up on weapons and be ready to move quick. They need to understand that something's coming, but we don't want them knowing too much too soon."

"They're going to be major pissed-off when this is over," Buffy predicted. "But I guess you're right: if your plan works, we can always say, 'Hey, it worked!' And if it doesn't … if it doesn't, them being mad will be the least of our problems." She shook her head sharply, then looked to Cordelia. "Okay, clothes. So, what have you got for me?"

"Your basic black, some more black, and hey! how about something in black? Here, try 'em on." She tossed over the selected apparel.

Buffy snagged the garments out of the air, separated them for a quick, expert inspection, then looked back to Cordelia. "Pedal pushers?" she asked.

"Long enough for _your_ stubby little legs," Cordelia pointed out. "Just tuck them into your boots. And turn up the cuffs of the turtleneck if your arms won't reach through the sleeves. I want to finish here so we can move on to picking weapons."

"I'm not that much shorter than you," Buffy retorted. "Lighten up. You said your mother has a wig?"

"We'll get to that." Cordelia gestured toward the vanity table, and the comprehensive cosmetics selection arrayed there. "Right now, let's do something about your face."

"These guys aren't fashion police, Cordy. And I'll be trying _not_ to be seen, and moving fast and fighting if they spot me." She shook her head. "Let's focus on essentials here."

And once again, the gulf yawned between them. For the life of her, Cordelia could never decide if it was because Buffy had changed, or because _she_ had. The girl still fought, still had no shortage of grit and courage and self-reliance … but she just wasn't quite the same anymore, she no longer saw the world through a Slayer's eyes. The hunter-predator perspective that came so automatically now to Cordelia seemed to have deserted her predecessor.

"It's all essential," she said evenly; this wasn't the time to start going off on her allies. "You don't give up _any_ advantages, not with these stakes or these odds. If anybody catches a glimpse of you, they need to think they're seeing the Slayer. Anything that helps make that happen, helps us. So I'm not worried about making you look good, I just want you to look like _me_. Which, okay, same thing, but you get my point."

"Whatever." Buffy sat at the vanity table. "Just, can we make it quick? We don't have unlimited daylight here."

Cordelia made no answer, concentrating on the task before her as a distraction from the aggression she could feel steadily mounting. Artful shading to make the face seem longer; accentuate the cheekbones; extend the lip-lines to widen the mouth; low-contrast around the eyes, don't draw attention to how much lighter they were than her own. That last was a delicate balance, more misdirection than camouflage; only so much could be done, and honestly, if anybody looked _that_ close, they were sunk anyhow. Besides which, heavy eye make-up and individual combat simply didn't go together.

Maybe she was being too picky, but she didn't think so. When it came right down to it, you could never predict just how much difference one little detail could make …

~ – ~ – ~

It turned on a speck of mascara. Aura's: Cordelia used a much smoother blend, and applied it with endlessly-honed skill. That night, however, she had let Aura show her a new effect in the ladies' room at the Bronze, and liked it enough that she allowed it to stay when they emerged, though she was already calculating how to improve and personalize the look.

Then the stunningly handsome stranger had crossed her vision, and cosmetic enhancement was instantly forgotten. "Hello, salty goodness," she observed; and then, as much to herself as to her fawning retinue, added, "Call 9-1-1, 'cause that boy's gonna need some serious help when I'm done with him."

Confident words, but it almost stopped right there, ended before it could begin. In clear violation of the natural order, Hunk-o-Rama went straight to Buffy … _who still had Owen_ hanging onto her, so that flake-girl was suddenly bracketed by two hot guys at once, leaving Cordelia to moan, "Why is this happening to me?"

It was as if the entire universe was suddenly conspiring against her. She stewed for a few minutes in unaccustomed frustration, and was about to move on when an ordinary blink dropped a crumb of Aura's cheap mascara into her eye. Barely, she felt it land on the eyelid and it could just as easily have dropped free, but it went in and she spent three or four seconds extracting it, just enough to keep her where she could see Mister Broody Leather making his way out the door.

And she went after him, of course. When opportunity knocks, you jump on that puppy and ride it for all it's worth. (The universe was back on track. _Yes!_)

The rest of it followed from that. His attempt to brush her away, meaningless against her determination. Her automatic self-check in the reflective glass of a shop window as she strode along beside him, and the sinking-stomach realization that she was the only one there. Angel's halting confession of his true nature, followed later by the revelation of his mission to watch and assist Miss Psychotic Muffet in her slay-destiny.

Her own eventual involvement — reluctant, but inevitable — with the group attached to Angel's mission. Her forceful support of Angel when the others finally learned his undead status, without which support they never would have accepted him (although it was also possible that Buffy's objections sprang as much from his association with Cordelia as from his bloody back-history). The later, closer, but briefer involvement with Xander: there was more to him than most people ever suspected, but the two of them had made the attempt only because each was in love with someone else … and, impossible or not, in the end they had abandoned it to resume pursuit of their original desires.

Despite the arrogant assurance she displayed to the world around her, Cordelia occasionally allowed herself to recognize that she wasn't the _exact_ center of the universe, and had privately wondered just what intersections of destiny and personality had directed her and Angel toward one another. They were both gorgeous, and both — never say it aloud — lonely, but that seemed to be the only things they had in common. Though she was careful never to remind her classmates either of her relative youth or of the brain that had allowed her to skip a grade before she wised up to social necessities, she was fifteen years old; he was sixteen _times_ fifteen. He was supernatural, and dead; she was human (perfect, but otherwise normal), and alive. He was tasked by fate to aid the Slayer; her own destiny, though doubtless extraordinary, did _not_ involve up-close-and-personal with demon ickiness. The instant he had showed her his true face should have been the instant she erased him from her life.

Besides which, if anything was going to happen, you would expect it to be between him and Buffy.

Much later, when their partnership was as much destiny as heart, Cordelia had 'teasingly' commented, _I bet you're like this with all the Slayers._ Angel had looked startled, then thoughtful, then somber, before replying, _No. I've only worked with two, and the other one didn't measure up to you._

That was all he would say at the time; other hints of detail would take months to emerge, and even now there was no way to be certain she had the true picture. The overall impression, though, was that he had compared Buffy (mystical warrior, but ceaselessly complaining about it and determined to retain her status as a teen-aged airhead) to Cordelia (already queen of the social jungle, but joining the struggle _à la_ Hellmouth by her own free choice), and found the contrast not at all in Buffy's favor.

Still, that left the original question: with all the obvious obstacles, what had drawn the two of them together?

On his side, it had perhaps started with protectiveness. He had hidden the truth from all around him for nearly a century, and now here was someone who knew. One girl in all the world with whom he didn't have to pretend, so naturally he found himself wanting to watch out for her whenever he could. Not that she needed help (mostly), but maybe being sure she was safe was _his_ need.

On her side … harder to say. Why had she let him inside her defenses? In the beginning, it had been mostly annoyance. She had caught him 'stalking' her, challenged him on it, blasted him with the full force of her razor-edged disdain … and it had meant nothing to him. Huh? _Nobody_ was immune to the tongue of Cordelia Chase! But, as she had gradually come to realize, this was someone whose personal sense of guilt ran so deep, lesser insults had little effect.

By the time she reached that conclusion, however, they were both hooked already. Sparring had become conversation, conversation had become sharing … She had emphatically not-invited him into her home, but there was no counting the nights they had talked, he in the tree outside her bedroom, she lounging in the window seat. In ways they had never tried to analyze, they could be themselves with one another, where it would have been impossible with anyone else.

Only, the situation itself was impossible. No getting away from that.

Thus, her and Xander. Even if it hadn't been obvious already, that one all by itself showed just how much Angel's companionship had changed her. Guy of your dreams turns out to be unavailable? no problem, clear set of protocols for dealing with the situation. Cut him dead (whoops, too late, some breathy little whore did that a couple of centuries ago), convince him and yourself and everybody else that he was a total loser who never deserved you to begin with, and latch onto the highest-status trophy male in sight for your rebound guy.

Right. "Trophy", "Xander" … two words that the laws of nature would never place in the same sentence, unless "World's Greatest Dork" figured in there somewhere. By that time, though, he'd saved her life a few times (she'd returned the favor, of course; if she was going to mix it up with the supernatural, she meant to pull her weight), and his hopeless yearning for Buffy matched only too clearly her own recognition that she had no conceivable future with Angel. So, after too many nights spent redirecting their frustration into insult marathons at the Bronze, Cordelia had reached across the distance between them, pulled Xander to her, and kissed him.

It wasn't desire. It wasn't even need. But, for a short while, it was _something,_ and they held onto it until they could both see it had no more to give them.

They had never spoken of it to any of the others while it was going on. Angel had known, however, either through secret observation or just by smelling their pheromones, and somehow Buffy had come to realize it also. When Cordelia and Xander had shared a look after talking Marcie down from the clock tower after the invisible girl's revenge plans had fallen apart, and then seen Buffy and Angel share a _See, I told you_ look of their own … it had ended in that moment, with mutual understanding and no regrets. Without even words; one moment, they had a 'whatever the hell you want to call it', the next, the line stopped at 'friends', and that was that. They weren't what the other two believed them to be, and it was time to stop pretending otherwise to themselves.

A captured glance. A moment's impulse. A fleck of mascara. It could be anything, anything at all, and never with a hint of warning.

~ – ~ – ~

It took time for the two of them to work out the matter of weapons. For Cordelia that seldom posed a problem — a Slayer's most formidable weapon was her own body, the rest was trim — but Buffy's situation required some thought. How much could she carry, quietly, and yet still be able to access it in a hurry when the time came? What should she have with her to pass on to Willow? What would best allow them to fight their way out OR make a stand while the rest of the Slay Friends fought their way in? And, from the wish list thus determined, which did Cordelia have readily at hand?

In the end they armed Buffy lightly with a collection of stakes and a _ninja-to_ (the short, straight blade wasn't as good as would have been the longer, curved _katana,_ but Giles kept the quality gear in his own inventory). In a black backpack they packed more stakes, bottles of holy water, a folding crossbow, and a hand-axe, muffled with bath towels to forestall clanking, to be broken out when stealth was no longer an issue. Cordelia made a similar, smaller backpack for herself; she could carry plenty, but needed less, she just wanted to have something Xander could use for defense while she focused on the immediate business of slaughter.

Fully kitted out, Buffy flexed and twisted, assessing her balance and freedom of movement, then worked her way through a short _kata_ before settling back, satisfied. Since returning to baseline human status, she had trained harder under Giles' tutelage than she ever had as a Slayer, and would be roughly at a mid-brown belt level by now. Most importantly, though (Cordelia had confirmed this through her new combat-sense, and drew comfort from it) was that Buffy still _knew_ vampires, their nature and rhythms … and knew that their strength and speed ridiculously exceeded her own, so that the aim wasn't to defeat one — no real possibility of that — but to stay alive until she could land a killing stroke. The loss of her Slayer mojo had made her acutely conscious of how vulnerable she was now, and as a result she was just about the last person who would underestimate an opponent of the undead persuasion.

She took a moment to tighten the shoulder straps on the backpack, and told Cordelia, "Feels okay. I couldn't hear anything shifting while I moved, so let's hope the vamps can't either." She tilted her head. "Hey, how about that black leather jacket, the one hanging in the back? It'll blend in as well as this stuff does, and give me a little extra padding if I have to take any punches —"

Cordelia cut her off. "It won't fit you."

"I told you, I'm not that much shorter than you …" Buffy trailed off, and her expression became wary. "Wait a minute. Is … is that the jacket _he_ used to —?"

"It won't fit you," Cordelia repeated flatly.

"Oh. Right. Okay, then." Buffy looked away. "So, are we ready to go?"

"I can't think of anything else," Cordelia said. "Let's get the text messages into our phones, so we can shoot them straight over to Giles and the others just by pushing a button. When the time comes, we may not have the chance to do anything else."

"Gotcha," Buffy agreed. As they began to enter the messages into the phones' memory, however, she looked to the Slayer and said, "About you going after Xander, at the mansion …"

"Look, _enough,"_ Cordelia snapped. "He may be your snuggle-buddy, but you're not the right person to try and rescue him! We can pull this off, but only if you do your job and let me do mine! If you can't understand that —"

"I do," Buffy cut in. "I do, really. You're the Slayer, you're our big gun, sending you is what gives him the best chance. Which completely bites, but that's how it is. I'm just …" She hesitated.

"Yeah?" Cordelia prodded grimly.

"I've heard what some of the others have said, and … and I know from the expression on Willow's face what she's _not_ saying. They think you've passed up some good shots at Angelus, because of what you used to have with Angel."

Cordelia sniffed disdainfully, her face hard over the twisting in her gut. "I am so far past caring what anybody thinks."

"I know how he's tried to play you," Buffy went on. "Using those memories to hurt you. I remember the way Xander acted, back when he was hyena-possessed … We weren't even together then, but I saw how he was, and I can guess how I'd feel if he did to me what Angelus has been doing to you."

Cordelia's laugh was sharp and ugly. "You're worried I'll go easy on my ex just because of old smoochies in the moonlight —?"

"No," Buffy answered. "I told you, I can imagine how I'd feel in your place. So I need you to promise me you won't miss a chance to save Xander because you're so determined to kill Angelus."

Cordelia opened her mouth, then paused and thought about it. "Huh," she said, studying Buffy, one eyebrow raised. "I guess you can take the killer out of the girl, but getting rid of that killer instinct is a whole different deal."

"I know how I'd feel," Buffy said yet again. "And I know how I'd react. So, do you promise?"

"Yes," Cordelia said. "You've got my word on it. You're right, I might've gone that way without even realizing I was letting it happen. But I've been warned, so yes, I promise. Xander comes first."

"Good." Buffy checked that the dark wig was fixed securely in place, and hefted her shoulders under the backpack one last time, then started for the door. " 'Course, if you can do it _without_ risking Xander, feel free to totally kick his ass."

"Fun thought, but it lacks closure." Cordelia fell in behind her. "Because the way to a man's heart? definitely through his rib cage."


	3. Part 3

Part III

_It was no poisoned apple that brought an end to her idyllic dreams, but a cursed happiness. Not a stroke of midnight marking the return of an enchanted coach to pumpkin status, but an hour of passion that freed a monster to walk smiling in the guise of a man. No enchanted spindle to prick her into endless sleep, but a gray dawn where she woke into nightmare._

_Fine, because she was no fairy-tale princess. _**Their**_ job was to look pretty, and get rescued, and snag a prince for themselves. Basically, to be ornamental and useless._

_She was something else entirely. Others like her had swayed the fate of nations, brought scheming courtiers and over-ambitious prime ministers and rival kings to ruin._

_And, sometimes, turncoat lovers as well._

~ – ~ – ~

Waiting time.

Cordelia didn't like it, but she'd taught herself to be good at it. After delivering Buffy to within sneaking distance of the factory, she had driven quickly to a spot two blocks short of the mansion; then, on foot, she'd slid from one place of concealment to another until she had a spot where she could settle herself, wait, and plan. She kept her muscles relaxed, but her mind refused to stay still.

They might not be at the factory at all.

The mansion itself might be a false clue: mockingly empty once she broke in, or with a message waiting to direct her to the actual field of play.

They might spot Buffy before she made it inside, or catch her before she had a chance to locate Xander.

Either or both of the prisoners might be chained, or crippled … or even killed and turned. That would go against her conviction that Angel would keep them alive simply to torment her with her inability to save both, but otherwise it perfectly matched his sadistic sense of artistry.

Anything could go wrong.

Everything could go wrong.

She waited.

Would Angel be here, or at the other location? He hadn't specified … but this was the place he'd told her about, as if daring her to come ahead. He lied as easily as breathing — more so, he had to _remind_ himself to breathe — but he also had that demon's pride. This was his game, she was supposed to be one of the puppets he was moving around … He'd be here. She was sure of it.

And she'd know for certain once Buffy called.

_If_ she ever called.

Claymore in a back-slung sheath. Stakes tucked up either sleeve, two more in narrow thigh-pockets. Holy-water bottle at each hip. Backpack, front clasp rigged so she could drop the whole thing with one tug and toss it to Xander while she proceeded to dispense death to everyone else in reach.

If Buffy would just call.

Call, call, _call._

The cell phone vibrated in her hand. She flipped it open, confirmed Buffy's message, and then — just in case the other girl hadn't had time — relayed her own message to the people who should be gathered by now in the library: location, situation, grab your gear and move! She forced herself to watch the display until she had confirmation that the text message had been sent. That done, she tucked the phone away, gathered herself, and leaped.

Showtime.

She hadn't known how long she would have to hold her position before Buffy called, so she had chosen her spot with care: approached with the sun at her back (any minions keeping watch in that direction wouldn't be able to stand more than quick peeks) and then gone up a tree beside the house, stopping at a level twenty feet from a second-floor window. By keeping the trunk of the tree between her and the house — and the sun still behind her — she had seriously trimmed the odds of her being spotted … and by making an entrance above ground-level, she should have at least a few seconds to get a sense of the interior layout before having to deal with any welcoming parties.

So, a shift to the house-side of the tree, and a brace-and-push with Slayer-muscled legs propelled her easily across the intervening gap and through the window. She led with her knees and elbows, letting the padded cloth take the cuts as she smashed through (her new healing could handle almost anything, but _this_ face deserved to be treated with respect). Momentary tangle in the curtains but she'd known that might happen, she rolled free — no fun while wearing a backpack and slung sword — and to her feet, already looking for opposition.

None, so move _fast,_ this wasn't a stealth mission! Through the door and straight down the hall, still nobody and a high-arcing jump carried her over the railing at the interior balcony, allowing her to drop straight down to the first floor. She cleared the claymore in mid-air, and landed slashing.

They had thought they were ready; vampires were big on confidence, all part of the whole I-am-a-superior-being-and-you-are-but-fodder-to-me 'tude. They _weren't_ ready, not for her, and none of them lasted long enough to realize it. She read them with a split-second glance as she alit among them — muscle boys, no flair or cunning — and took them out in a lightning sequence that cost her less than a second per adversary.

(The other Slay Friends — back when she'd been one, before ascending to premier status — had criticized her for stereotyping people. Well, guess what? Stereotypes _fit_ most of the time, and they worked even better for a Slayer. Scope your enemies, slot them to type, handle each according to his/ her basic nature … she'd been doing exactly that in the halls of SHS for years, and the only real difference now was that she could neutralize the opposition faster and more emphatically.)

There had been three of them — Crew-cut, Tattoo-guy, Hook-nose — and they had come at her with fatal, automatic aggression, as if she were their prey instead of they hers. She walked through their dust, sword up, searching for more.

There were others. They fared no better. She boiled through the rooms, taking the vampires one and two at a time; she'd caught them off-balance by appearing inside the house, and she was moving too quickly to allow them time to recover. Besides, she realized, these were outliers, sentries rather than a fighting line. Fair enough, anybody who had time to get out a warning yell was welcome to do it. _If_ they had the time, which she didn't intend to let happen. She forged on, killing and hunting. There had to be more: this was a set-up, she'd gone in knowing as much, so where was the kicker, the big surprise waiting to be sprung —?

Then she found it.

This wasn't just a big house, it was a _mansion_. High walls (she'd gone over one to get to the tree), garden and courtyard, kitchen and pantry and dining room and servants' quarters (empty) and study and library … and, she discovered, a central room big enough for formal dances and probably designed expressly for such a purpose. Big enough also for the tableau Angel had set.

The man she loved had shunned the spotlight, keeping to the shadows. By contrast, the demon wearing his face had a bent for showmanship, indulged it whenever he could, and created opportunities if none were there to begin with. What he didn't have was the least hint of style, as evidenced by the cheesy scenario laid out in front of her. Rows of vampires (an even dozen, she noted automatically), arrayed like an honor guard, lined up to form an avenue to the center of the room. Angel waited for her there, posed dramatically — the center of attention, exactly where he always wanted to be — with torches flaring ominously on either side of him and …

… and Willow.

Oh, no. No, no, no, no, _no._ It was supposed to be Xander here, Willow at the factory. Why hadn't Buffy _told_ her, instead of just shooting her the "GO" message? Willow had been Buffy's main training partner after Cordelia became the Slayer; not quite as good — blue-belt level, maybe — but they worked well together, the kind of teamwork Cordelia and Angel had once shared. Buffy and Willow could have held their own, with surprise on their side and reinforcements on the way. Buffy and Xander … and Angel, here, meant it would be Spike and Drusilla at the factory … oh, God. Ohgodohgodohgod —

Focus, Slayer! Reinforcements, remember the reinforcements. Besides, she had more than enough to occupy her in the here-and-now.

Angel gripped both of Willow's wrists easily in one hand, and he smirked at Cordelia, preening in triumph. "Surprised, princess? I always knew you had a soft spot for the boy, so I thought I'd toss in a little bait-and-switch to shake things up. And I was right, you couldn't resist coming here, trying to beat the deadline … only, whoops! no boy-toy." His expression turned mock-regretful. "I'll bet you're just feeling all kinds of stupid right now. But then, with your track record, you should be getting used to it."

Oh, sure, this was where he gloated while she, stung, tried to hit back with insults. _Up yours, poster boy, that's not how we're playing it!_ As he opened his mouth for another needling jab, she hurled all four of her stakes in instant succession. Three found their target; Angel dodged the first, diving away, but she'd expected that, the whole idea was to get him away from Willow, two of the minions shrieked and turned to dust and the last stake caromed from the ceiling to land right next to Willow.

Though she lacked supernatural speed, Willow was no novice at combat, she had already grabbed one of the torches and cleared a space around her with a wide swing (_great stage-setting, Mousse Boy! plant an enemy next to one of the things that can kill you!_), and now snatched up the stake as well. Instead of having to go straight to the girl's rescue, Cordelia charged the ranks of minions, only just beginning to react, and shouted to Willow, "Fire the room!"

She killed four in as many seconds, chopping and slashing, then the claymore passed through the fourth one _— ashes, ashes, all fall down —_ and lodged in the carved wood of a massive armchair, no time to pull it free so she promptly abandoned it, attacking with feet and fists, and _now_ was the time to get to Willow.

Angel was an accomplished fighter one-on-one, but a crappy leader, Cordelia could tell from the confusion of the minions that he hadn't given them any contingency instructions, and now they had no idea what to do. The greatest danger had been that he would go for Willow before Cordelia could reach her … but no, he had chosen to stand back and watch, no doubt thinking he'd let his flunkies wear her down before he deigned to join the fight. The ones who hadn't jumped to meet the Slayer were ringing Willow now; Cordelia flung the contents of one holy water bottle at them, somersaulted over them as they screeched and sizzled, and — _damn,_ the girl was good! — Willow slapped the fourth stake into her hand as she landed, and then automatically went back-to-back with her.

Still seven left, Cordelia traded blows with a female vampire sporting hair the color of raspberry Kool-Aid before getting a clear shot with the stake. Kool-Aid went _poof!_, Cordelia hit the clasp that dropped the backpack, snapped, "More weapons there!" to Willow, then leaped to the attack. The ring around them had come apart, none of them were pressing Willow at the moment, and Cordelia went straight for them.

She had seen Buffy fight a number of times before her 'death', and it was a wonder to her that the girl had survived so long on the Hellmouth. Fast, strong, tough, intuitive — sure, Buffy was all that, and a bag of chips — but she had never seemed to grasp the essential element of fighting monsters, which was to quit fooling around trading quips and punches like they had equal weight, and _kill_ the damn things, already! Well, Cordelia didn't need any lessons in cutting to the quick, and with Willow doing such a bang-up job of staying alive, it was time to pull out all the stops.

Vampires were predators, gravitating naturally to the human feeding ground, so they weren't used to dealing with anything more powerful than themselves. Their nature demanded that they attack, while their experience hadn't prepared them for an enemy who could simply shake off an attack, and Cordelia had months ago discovered, quite by accident, a tactic that caught them by surprise nine times out of ten:

She stopped defending. Ponytail fired a punch at her face, and rather than block or dodge, she just reached under the punch to stake him, taking the hit in order to get the kill. Rambo leaped to take advantage as she staggered, and she moved _into_ the spinning kick he launched at her, spearing him with a lunging extension even as his booted foot smacked her head to the side. She went to her knees, and two more darted in, slamming kicks into her ribs and face and dying above her —

Just like that, it was down to Angel and two others. The room was burning in half a dozen places, Willow taking every opportunity to follow Cordelia's first shouted instructions, and another of the minions shrieked as his clothes caught fire, jumped and flailed and then dissolved into the flame, easily as a magician's flash paper … and Angel was running. _Running._ His strategy had backfired, his army disintegrating while he held himself clear, awaiting his chance, and now — the odds flatlined at two-to-two — he'd lost his taste for combat.

Smart move, but it wouldn't save him. He'd brought the fight to her one time too many, put himself where she could finally reach him, and now he would pay the price for that blunder. "I'm going after him!" she shouted to Willow, and darted in pursuit. "I'm good!" she heard in reply, and then the burning room was behind her and she was running full-out.

She had just left Willow alone there with an enraged vampire. Horrible risk, but — bottom line — not as big a risk as letting Angel leave here alive (well, undusted). The girl could handle herself; she had the torch, she had the other weapons, she'd played it like a pro from the first moment —

Forget all that. Focus on the target. Right choice or not, Cordelia was committed now.

Angel held his lead at first, knowing the layout of the mansion and not wasting time by looking back or trying to knock obstacles into her path; he just put his head down and charged ahead, and it was all Cordelia could do to keep up. It wouldn't last, though, geography was against him, he couldn't spare the time to open any doors so he just smashed through them, and lost a fraction of a second every time he did so.

At last he hit the end of a hall, and there was no way he could break down that door before she caught up to him. He swung to face her, trapped but not yet desperate. His lips curved into a mocking smile, and Cordelia felt hate and rage surge up inside her.

This was the worst of it, this was what filled her with such fury that — after the first disastrous attempt — he had never dared to confront her without a full crew backing him up: his face. He was so different, his demonic transformation spinning her into a U-ie on the Interstate of her life … but _he still looked the same_.

He would pay for wearing that face, for desecrating her memories …

~ – ~ – ~

Spring Fling. They'd made no formal agreement, but Cordelia had privately decided she'd go with Xander if nothing had changed in their situation by the time the dance came around. That plan had gone out the window with the voluntary separation following Marcie's surrender, and Cordelia found herself in a quandary. Some events she could attend without an escort, setting herself above it all and holding court with the Cordettes instead, but the Spring Fling ranked up there with Homecoming and the Prom: only losers went stag. It had been one thing to plan how to dress Xander up and arrive on his arm (part of her had relished the challenge of dealing with the fallout from _that_), but another matter entirely to think of going it alone or — worse yet — skipping the whole thing.

She could have found a substitute easily enough, but felt no enthusiasm for any of the available candidates; like it or not, dealing with life-and-death issues — even seeing what social snobbery had done to poor Marcie — had changed her tastes. She _still_ ruled, but she was an enlightened monarch now. She couldn't stand the as-yet-unattached males who had the necessary status, and there was no way she'd show up with a _nobody,_ she had a reputation to maintain …

Hmm.

Maybe an older guy. That could work.

The next evening that Angel appeared at her window, ready to settle in for conversation, Cordelia invited him inside for the first time. He entered, wary and uncomfortable and trying not to show it, and she ordered him brusquely, "Raise your arms."

He stared at her, nonplussed. "What —?"

"I said _lift_ 'em, Lugosi!" He complied, and she stretched a measuring tape across his chest. "Right, now arms down. Good, good. Okay, hold your feet apart, this whole thing could go sour with a bad inseam —"

"What are you doing?" he protested.

"Measuring you for a tux. You're taking me to the Spring Fling."

He blinked. "I am?"

"Yep," she said, nodding. "Consider it your introduction to the twentieth-century social scene."

"I was here when the century began," he pointed out. "And the one before that."

She _pfft!_ed. "And what part of me looks like I care? Don't try and fight it. You need some culture, and I need some top-quality himbo arm candy. It's a done deal already."

He shook his head as if trying to clear it. "Arm … candy?"

So, of course, it was all set.

And, of course, Prophecy Girl had to spoil it for everybody. Some lame prediction that she'd face the Master, and die, leaving him free to open the Hellmouth … please, melodrama much? Nobody had told Angel about the prophecy — they still didn't fully trust him, even though _he_ had given them the Kotex (gross) to translate — so the first they knew about it was when Miss Calendar phoned her and Willow to tell them that Buffy had knocked Xander out, handcuffed Giles to the railing of the library stairs, and marched out to get herself killed.

So Cordelia went to find Angel, and he set out to try and save Buffy, and she went with him. Down through the _sewers_. In a $600 dress.

Something happened down there, something that no prophecy seemed to have covered. They found the Slayer in an underground pool, drowned and still … and Cordelia, furious at ruining her finery to no purpose, straddled the girl and started CPR, working from the memory of a single class in PhysEd and a lifetime of medical shows on television. Forced air into her lungs, pumped blood through the slack heart, _made_ her breathe, _made_ her live. When Buffy choked and coughed and vomited water, Cordelia felt triumph roar through her, sizzling like electricity —

Okay, more than just triumph. Something else had moved between them, though neither realized at first quite what it was. Cordelia knew only that she felt tingly … and strong. Strong enough that she and Angel, carrying Buffy together, came up out of the catacombs at twice the speed they'd traveled going in. They took Buffy to the hospital, alive but dreadfully weak, and it wasn't until they had left her there that Angel broke the news to Cordelia.

She wasn't buying it. "Are you totally demented? This is _me_ here."

"Exactly," Angel said. "I know you, better than I've known any other living human. There's more to you now … and less to her. The prophecy was right: the Slayer died. And now the Slayer is you."

She shook her head, searching for words of denial, and he fired a punch directly at her face. It was too fast for the human eye to follow unaided … but she struck it aside, yelping with surprise, and caught him with a backhand strike that landed him ten feet away.

He pulled himself to his feet as she gaped at him. "See?" he said.

She let it soak in, and he waited. "Okay," she said at last. "So … I guess that means we have a big creepy to kill."

Angel nodded. "Works for me."

They found the Master on the roof of the school library. Hell was breaking out — literally — below the skylight, and screams could be heard elsewhere on the campus, but he was the source of it. Cordelia approached him alone, her new body carrying her with an assurance far from what she actually felt. He turned to face her, as if he had felt her presence, and that fruit-bat face showed amusement rather than surprise.

"Hmm, another Slayer. So soon. How did that happen, I wonder?" He gave her an eek-some grin. "Oh, that's right. I killed the other one." He rolled his spidery fingers as he spoke, hard-nailed tips tapping against each other.

"She was just the warm-up act," Cordelia told him grimly. "This is the main event."

He didn't seem to move at all, yet abruptly he was beside her, and only a diving roll straight out of one of her spirit routines (albeit Slayer-propelled) kept those taloned nails from taking out her throat. "Whoa!" she gasped. "How did you do that?"

"I've watched empires age and die, child." He regarded her with lofty smugness. "My progeny have fought the champions of every nation for six centuries past, and sometimes brought them back for me to play with. Do you believe a —" The already-twisted lips curled contemptuously. "—'valley girl' could pose much of a challenge?"

This time she was gone before he reached her, and she smiled at the brief widening of his eyes as he turned to where she now stood. "Thought so," she told him, smirking. "Some kind of hypno-thing, right? You caught me out once, but what kind of loser would fall for that a second time?"

"Only those of markedly weak intellect," he retorted. "Slayers, for instance. As I recall, the last one died of it."

She broadened her smile. "Are you sure about that? What if …" She let her eyes cut toward a point over his shoulder, then pulled them back. "What if she's right behind you?"

He laughed disdainfully. "Please. Do I look like I died yest–"

The crowbar rebounded from his skull with the wet sound of an axe striking a rotted stump, and Cordelia was in the air at the same instant, crossing the rooftop in a flying leap to drive a kick into his chest. He was catapulted backward through the skylight, and only a hand yanking at the collar of her borrowed jacket kept her from following him down. He landed on a spur of wood upthrust from a broken table; skin and flesh boiled away from him, spraying in all directions like a swarm of wasps, until only the naked bones remained.

Angel took hold of her arm, letting the crowbar fall, and steadied her at the edge of the shattered skylight. Together they watched the Hellmouth recede back into the library floor. "I didn't like doing it that way," he said to her.

"You're sneakier than I am," Cordelia pointed out. "I'm new to all this, you've got a couple of centuries' skulking practice on me." The smile she gave him brimmed with predatory satisfaction. "And, like I expected, he didn't take me seriously. You, he might not have underestimated."

He pretended to sulk. "So what was all that 'look behind you' business? You almost gave me away."

"Not a chance." She laughed. "He was _way_ too smart to let me trick him into looking back. Six hundred years old or not, men are all the same when it comes to ego."

Angel tilted his head to look down at her, a faint smile flitting across his face. "You're used to having your way, aren't you?"

"I decide what I want, and I go after it." She raised her eyes to his. "And I don't let anything stop me. _Anything."_

Warning, and promise. They were alike now, part of the same mystical order. Nothing stood between them, not any longer, and she had no intention of letting him get away …


	4. Part 4

Part IV

Those dreams were gone, but her resolve was as powerful as ever. There was nothing between them now but air, and she would not, _would not_ let him get away. "No more games," she told him, moving forward. "This is it, end of the line."

For someone about to be made deader than ever, Angel was infuriatingly uncowed. "If I had a dime for every time I've heard that … well, it'd be a boatload of dimes." He shook his head, still holding that loathsome smirk. "Looks pretty bad for me, doesn't it? I'll admit, I'm impressed. I never thought you could pull it off, you really cleaned house here. Hell hath no fury like a debutante PO'd." His mouth took a sardonic upward tilt. "But, gosh, did you ever stop to wonder how things might be going _elsewhere?"_

Yes, she had, but she wasn't about to be distracted. "Newsflash, asswipe," she sneered. "We've already got the factory covered." Nobody behind her, she'd hear anyone approaching, and the way he was standing told her he didn't have any hidden weapons. Time to finish this —

He laughed: knowing, mocking, unshakably pleased with himself. "Really? Come on, now, is that the only 'elsewhere' you can think of?"

Cordelia didn't get it for a moment. Then she felt her face stiffen, and he was grinning his derision. "That's right, princess. I jerk your strings, you call all the kiddie crusaders together … it doesn't matter which target you pick, either way nobody's covering _them."_ His laughter followed her as she sprinted back down the hallway. "And you fall for it _every single time —!"_

She almost steamrolled over Willow; the girl carried the torch and a pistol-grip crossbow from the backpack, claw-marks on one arm and blood trickling from her hairline. "Did you … is he …?" Willow stopped, staring at Cordelia as she registered Angel's voice, still laughing. "You're letting him _go?"_

Cordelia grabbed her by the uninjured arm and towed her along, slowing just enough to avoid dislocating the other girl's shoulder. "We're leaving. Now."

Willow tried to twist to look back. "But, Angelus —"

"Forget him." Back to the burning room, choked now with smoke as the flames spread, she left Willow at the door and was in-and-out in less than two seconds, carrying the recovered claymore, she'd need it and "Let's go!" she commanded, yanking Willow in her wake.

"Wh-what …" Willow gasped and stumbled, Cordelia forced herself to slacken her pace, a vampire stepped out in front of them, snarling: the last one, Muscles, face and hands smoking with holy-water burns, Willow had made good use of the supplies in the backpack. He shouldn't have wasted time with the snarl, the thrown stake took him squarely in the heart and Cordelia powered straight through the settling dust. "What's happening?" Willow finished. "What's the matter?"

"Big trouble," Cordelia answered tersely. "Soon as we hit the street, stop and wait."

They burst into daylight, and — as she had warned — Cordelia broke away from Willow at the street, dashing ahead at speed a cheetah would have had to push to surpass. Thirteen seconds later, she roared back in her convertible, pulled to a tire-squalling not-quite-stop, Willow vaulted the door frame to land with an _oof!_ on the passenger side, and Cordelia punched the accelerator, rocketing them away. Willow took a moment to snatch back her breath, then said again, "What's happening?"

Cordelia wrenched the wheel to carry them around the corner in a classic four-wheel drift. "There's another bunch set to attack at the library," she told Willow. "That's if they haven't already. We need to call them …" She reached for the cell phone on her belt, found nothing. "Oh, no!"

"What?" Willow asked. "What is it?"

"Phone's gone," Cordelia reported. "I must have lost it while I was fighting." In the rear-view mirror, she could see smoke billowing up: the whole mansion must be engulfed by now, there was no hope of recovering the phone even if she could find it. Was Angel still back there? _Burn, you bastard,_ she urged silently … but he always left himself an escape-hatch, he'd be in the sewer tunnels by now. He'd played her perfectly, damn him, even defeated he'd sent her running away while he laughed in triumph.

It didn't matter. Every win whetted his appetite for more, and every loss made her more determined to kill him. Sooner or later he'd overreach, and she'd be there to chop off his hands and start working her way up to the shoulders. It _would_ happen, he couldn't help himself, so she could forget about it for now and focus on essentials.

"We have to find a way to get through," Willow said, hanging onto the dash as Cordelia took the next corner. "Pay phone, or stop at somebody's house —"

Cordelia ran the light at the next intersection, jamming the gas pedal to the floor on the straightaway. They weren't in a residential neighborhood, and she didn't see any pay phones, either. "They probably aren't even at the library," she said, thinking swiftly. "I made the call before I went into the mansion, and we'd already sent a message for them to start getting ready … they should already be at the factory by now." The speedometer was nearing 80, but she threaded the light traffic easily; though Buffy's occasional driving attempts had been memorably catastrophic — overcorrection could get nasty when it was triggered by Slayer reaction speed and powered by Slayer muscle — Cordelia's new abilities had somehow nudged her into perfect synchronization with the demands of vehicle control. After-school traffic had cleared, rush hour hadn't started yet, she was clipping good enough time that she'd have to choose in the next few seconds …

"The factory?" Willow asked. "That's where they have Xander?" And that decided it, at the next intersection Cordelia kept going instead of bearing right.

"Yes, he's at the factory," she told Willow. "Buffy wouldn't have sent me the go-ahead unless she'd found him. We thought it'd be you there — Angel said it was Xander at the mansion, but he faked us out — and she's expecting Giles and the others to come help her get out. If they all got hit at the library, that means no cavalry, so we're elected."

"But …" Willow's eyes widened. "But … Oz and the others …"

Exactly. Wherever she went, she was leaving someone unprotected, which was exactly how this whole wretched business had started. But, "We know where Buffy and Xander are," Cordelia said. "The others might be at the library, or they might be fighting their way into the factory, or they might still be on the drive over … but we don't _know."_ (Besides, she had promised Buffy that she'd put Xander first.) She shook her head, one hand effortlessly controlling the wheel as she screeched through another turn. "And we're closer to the factory now than to the school, so just hang on."

The next few street-changes demanded most of her attention, but even a split-second sight of Willow's expression showed that the other girl perfectly understood: they were gambling here, and people could die either way. _Hey, welcome to my world!_

Willow said none of that. She just said, "Hurry."

Cordelia hurried.

~ – ~ – ~

The scene in the factory wasn't the worst it could have been, but it was every bit as bad as most of the situations Cordelia had been hoping not to see. She and Willow went in fast, making no attempt at stealth but also without unnecessary noise to warn of their arrival; they had seen no familiar vehicles in the vicinity during their approach, which meant both that Cordelia had made the right choice and that something (presumably an attack at the library) had gone very wrong with the original plan.

And that was the _good_ part.

Following the sounds of hooting cheers and cooing babble, they found Xander and Buffy: cut off, immobilized, only forty feet from daylight but stranded as hopelessly as if they were on the moon's dark side. The room must have been constructed for transitional storage; triple-wide doorways opened out on either end, stacked boxes lined the walls … and in the center, a limp, blood-spattered Buffy in his arms, Xander struggled vainly to shield her as Drusilla glided around the two of them, crooning her pleasure and ignoring the applause of the onlooking minions. Xander was so bruised and bloody himself that only desperation kept him on his feet, and even as Cordelia signaled Willow to keep the minions occupied, the crazy vampiress darted in and took another swipe. It was aimed at Buffy, but delivered at such a speed and angle that Xander couldn't block it except with his own body.

Another chorus of cheers from the minions completed the picture. (Only four of them; if there had originally been a dozen here, as at the mansion, then Buffy and Xander must have done considerable damage before being run to ground.) No wonder they weren't joining in the proceedings: this wasn't a fight, it was _entertainment_. Drusilla was directing all her attacks at Buffy, shaped so that Xander could protect his helpless companion only by taking the hits himself. From the look of it, he'd taken plenty.

Cordelia was already moving, but not quickly enough. Either Willow had missed Cordelia's signal or she had chosen to ignore it, because a crossbow bolt _thwack!_ed past the charging Slayer, streaking for Drusilla's back —

— and Drusilla plucked it from the air without even looking around. "Naughty, naughty," she admonished, turning to face the newcomers. "You can't come to tea without a proper invitation. The sea-horses will be ever so disapproving."

Cordelia hated Spike; he had killed her father, and then forced her to kill him all over again. She hated Angel, using her most cherished memories as a weapon against her. But Drusilla she feared, a gut-deep ice-pick dread that she automatically transmuted into battle-rage. "The sea-horses can get bent," she spat, and drove for her enemy with a determination that overrode all else.

Even so, she registered the shots. Unless you were dealing with a master-level vampire — or a psychic lunatic — a crossbow was the best distance weapon for use against the undead … but it wasn't a rapid-fire mechanism, one shot and you were SOL until you could spare ten to fifteen seconds (four for a Slayer) to reload. By contrast, though bullets wouldn't kill a vampire, they could slow one down, and a handgun could get out repeat shots a lot more quickly.

Giles hadn't liked it. California law forbade it. Even the Sunnydale PD, blasé when confronted with hex marks and drained corpses and snarling sounds from the city sewers, would have reacted with righteous zeal to public firearms violations. But Willow was a believer in pro-active planning and, though they had never used them before now, she had clandestinely acquired three relatively inexpensive semiautomatic pistols (_strictly for emergencies,_ she had assured them all) and secreted them in lock-boxes beneath the seats of Cordelia's convertible, Giles' junker, and the zebra-striped van Oz used to transport his bandmates or fellow Slay Friends.

Cordelia, accustomed to close-in killing, had forgotten all about the pistol. Willow hadn't. Crossbow temporarily expended, she opened fire on the underlings as they started for her, spacing her shots and focusing their attention on her while Cordelia closed with Drusilla.

Or tried to. Three cuts — downslant left, cross-reverse, upslant right — and somehow Princess Corpseblossom drifted clear of them all. Cordelia had the superior speed, but Drusilla moved ahead of the attacks with infuriating languor, and as Cordelia drove in with a straight thrust, her adversary pushed the blade of the claymore aside with her fingertips and casually planted the crossbow bolt in Cordelia's shoulder.

Correction: into her shoulder _joint_. The point must have pierced a nerve, because it was as if a high-voltage current had been shot through her arm; the sword clattered to the concrete floor, and only supernatural resilience kept her from jerking back, screaming. Instead she blocked the looping punch Drusilla floated in from nowhere, scythed out a kick that forced a momentarily retreat from the vampiress, and tore the torturing bolt from her shoulder.

Drusilla was coming in again and Cordelia jabbed the crossbow bolt at her like a stake. Drusilla undulated around the thrust with boneless, unnatural fluidity, the movement somehow morphing into a kick that hooked back toward Cordelia's kidney. Cordelia avoided it by an arching pirouette that almost bent her double _— whoa, close, nothing like the joy of peeing blood for a solid week! —_ and flashed out a block against the follow-up attack that might or might not be coming — nope, nothing there, she straightened to face her enemy …

Drusilla's gaze caught hers, and held it.

Her eyes were enormous, bottomless, captivating. Cordelia fell into those eyes, the pain in her shoulder swirling into rapture. Why had they been fighting? They were sisters, the two of them: seeking their prey in the night, thrilling to the kill, loving Angel even while he hurt them. He was their fate, their destiny in the darkness, and no horrid little gypsy woman could ever take him away. Cordelia's breath went out of her in a moaning sigh as those slender fingers moved to her throat for a caress …

Did she break free from that psychic thrall, or did Drusilla jerk her eyes away first? Cordelia would never know; it was as if they moved in the same instant, she yanking her head back from the nails that would have opened her throat, while a twisting leap carried Drusilla clear of Xander's swing with the fallen claymore. Cordelia launched herself at her enemy, but had to check to avoid being cut in half, Drusilla had faded _behind_ Xander's next swipe of the sword, chortling with glee. This was why Drusilla scared her, this was why the very thought of facing her made Cordelia's guts clench: an opponent with vampiric power and speed, psychotic viciousness and unpredictability, and a clairvoyant's ability (apparently) to move in advance of _two_ people determined to kill her.

Even psychic forewarning seemed to have its limits, however. Drusilla was in rare form, Cordelia had never before seen her so totally attuned to her adversaries, but the nutso bitch was still only super(un)human: she whirled, simultaneously breaking Xander's wrist and snapping the crossbow bolt as Cordelia thrust it at her yet again, but her most extravagant contortions couldn't wrench her entirely from the path of Willow's final shot. The bullet caught her at the base of the skull, the pale slender body spasmed as her cerebral cortex (however much of it remained connected to physical reality) burned away from the cross crudely etched into the bullet's tip, and Cordelia struck before Drusilla could recover, driving the splintered end of the broken crossbow bolt into her chest and through the unbeating heart beneath.

Barely enough, due to luck as much as to her Slayerness, but barely would do for now, and even as Drusilla's dust hung suspended in the air, Cordelia was diving for the sword Xander had lost. Willow screamed again, that last shot really _had_ been her last shot, and Cordelia spun to send the claymore whirling across the room. It cut through the minion who had crowded Willow into the corner, bisecting him from hip to opposite shoulder, and the survivors fled as the Slayer turned murderous eyes in their direction.

She let them run. There was little point in pursuing them, and most certainly no time.

Xander was on the floor with Buffy, he'd had to let her fall to join the fight but now he cradled her in his lap, white-faced with pain but heedless of anything except her. "She's not breathing!" he gasped. "I can feel a pulse, but I don't think she's breathing!"

Cordelia stepped to his side, her eyes assessing with combat-hardened certainty. Though Xander had taken a terrible beating in his desperate efforts at protection, the damage to Buffy was worse, especially the leg. It had Drusilla's style (she'd liked to slice with her nails instead of claw), Buffy must have tried a kick and taken a cut that ran the length of her inner thigh. Cordelia saw the blood surging from the awful wound in crimson spurts, and a Slayer's pitiless appraisal told her, _femoral artery._ "Help me!" Xander was pleading. "We have to do CPR —"

CPR? With the slice in that leg, they'd be pumping blood _out_ of her. Cordelia pulled Buffy away from Xander, hoisting the senseless girl into her arms. "No time," she said tersely.

Xander gaped up at her. "What do you mean, no time? She's one of us, she was the Slayer when you still thought sparkle lip-gloss was trendy, and _she's not breathing!"_

"No time!" Cordelia repeated. God, could she sound any more retarded? But her attention was on speed just now, not zippy repartee; unable to articulate an explanation, she fell back on orders. "Get to the car, I'll carry her!"

Xander and Willow would have argued, she could see it, but she was already running and they had no choice but to follow. At the car, Willow helped Xander get Buffy laid out in the back, then took the front passenger's side, yanking the door shut as they peeled away from the factory. Cordelia had pulled Buffy's phone during the sprint outside, and she tossed it to Willow. "Call the hospital," she commanded. "Tell them to be expecting us, _fast!"_

Willow got through in seconds — that was one number all of them knew by heart — and warned them to have everything ready for a major blood-loss case: transfusions, emergency oxygen, crash cart, prep for arterial graft (whatever that was). Behind them, Xander was babbling frantically to the comatose Buffy. "Breathe for her," Cordelia ordered him. "Mouth-to-mouth, do it now!" Eyes still on the street ahead, she reached into the back seat, groping until she found the leg wound. She closed her hand on Buffy's bloody thigh, gripping with what she hoped was the right amount of force. She could splinter bone if she wasn't careful, and with all her care there was no avoiding massive trauma to the underlying flesh … but that would be a problem only IF she could keep Buffy alive till they reached the hospital. Deep pressure on the lacerated artery might accomplish that.

She could hear Xander, doing rescue breathing for Buffy. Willow, call completed, began to chant softly; Cordelia didn't recognize the words, but they had the same sound and rhythm as the blessings Miss Calendar used to do. (Something for healing, maybe. Willow, trying magic? That _had_ to be a sign of the apocalypse.) Cordelia squeezed with one hand, steered with the other, and poured all her concentration into doing the only thing that mattered now:

Drive.

~ – ~ – ~

City services weren't known for their efficiency; it was as if they devoted most of their energy to ignoring or rationalizing the plethora of odd things that happened in Sunnydale. The hospital was a welcome exception. Those people knew their business (they ought to, they saw as much action as a typical MASH unit), and the ER staff was probably the best in the world at dealing with traumatic exsanguination. A team was already waiting outside when Cordelia made a tire-squalling turn into the hospital parking lot; she muscled the convertible to a shuddering stop against the curb, and they converged on the vehicle while the hubcaps were still spinning across the driveway. Two men lifted Buffy onto a gurney, one of them immediately inserted an IV and started infusing her with plasma, and a crop-haired young woman in floral-patterned scrubs clamped the torn artery with brusque, brutal efficiency.

The team rushed Buffy inside, and Xander and Willow went with them, fielding rapid-fire questions about the patient: blood type, drug history, known allergies, other things Cordelia didn't hear because she was already peeling away from the entrance. There were still the others at the library … She was almost to the street when she saw a van with a familiar pattern of stripes — _Oz!_ — parked slightly askew down at the visitors' side of the lot. Cordelia swung in next to it and it was empty, so she abandoned her car and sprinted back to the ER. They'd arrived in less than ten minutes, but the school was even closer, maybe the rest of the Slay Friends had beaten her here …

Tucker Wells came out the doors just as she reached them, and only parahuman reflexes prevented a collision that would have left him somewhat the worse for wear. Not that he was in the best of shape anyhow; one cheek was bruised so badly it made his face look lopsided, and claw marks started at his chin and went down to his chest, extending through the cloth of his shirt. His eyes were the worst, though. They burned with a harsh, ugly light, and he looked to Cordelia with something like hatred. "Get out of my way," he said.

Right, _that_ was gonna happen. "They're here?" Cordelia demanded. "The others are here?"

"What do you care?" He tried to push past her; she blocked him effortlessly, and his face twisted with fury. "Get out of my way!"

"Not before you give me an answer," Cordelia told him firmly. "Basic stuff first. Is everybody here? Is everybody _okay?"_

"They're here," Tucker said; he looked like he wanted to take a swing at her, but his survival instinct was still stronger than his anger. "They're not okay. Everybody's in bad shape, and Nancy's dead."

She had feared much worse, but it was still like taking a baseball bat to the belly, with Mark McGwire doing the honors. "How?" she asked him.

And Tucker lost it. "How do you think?" he shouted. "You called us together, but you didn't tell us _why,_ and you weren't _there!_ They jumped us in the library, we weren't ready, we were still waiting for you to give us a call!" Tears streamed down his face, and he beat at her with his clenched hands: not punches, but blind flailing, wild and with no power behind it. "Where were you? Where were you? _Where were you?"_

"Let him go," someone murmured in her ear. Marcie; she always spoke that way, pitching her voice low so that it only carried a few feet. "Get inside, I'll fill you in. He's had enough."

Cordelia moved aside, and Tucker plunged past her. He stopped twenty feet down the sidewalk, turned back to face her. "I'm out of this!" he screamed. "I'm through, you hear me? Don't call me again, because I'm _through!"_ Then he was gone, running through a daylight that was beginning to soften into evening.

"Sounds like he means it," Cordelia said. She spoke steadily; control, never lose control. "I guess it got pretty bad."

"Yeah, you could say that." Marcie's own voice was soft, pitiless, disgusted. "Inside, I said. I'll bring you up to date, but you're not giving orders any more. Not after this."


	5. Part 5

Part V

_The thing about fairy tales: you needed to know which source you were dealing with._

_Walt Disney? Cheery, light, sanitized … danger, hardship, the inevitable musical sing-along number, but you always knew it would come out right. Even if it was sweet enough to rot your teeth, the happy ending was pretty much built in._

_Hans Christian Andersen? Not so cheery, and the ending could be downright depressing. Who would have expected Danes to be such a gloomy lot? Compare Disney's little mermaid to Andersen's, well, no question which one you'd rather be._

_The Brothers Grimm? Aptly named. Those boys were _**twisted,**_ no two ways about it, and in their stories magic was just another way to give the shaft to shepherd boys and twin princesses and unlucky stepchildren. You might come out okay, you might not, but you were guaranteed a really unpleasant ride._

_Yep, if you found yourself in a fairy tale, you definitely needed to know its author. Just in case you had a chance to kill the son of a bitch._

_Better yet: make sure you wrote your _**own**_ endings._

~ – ~ – ~

As Tucker had said, the worst part was that none of them had been ready for battle; they had assembled, as per Cordelia's instructions, but still not knowing the purpose and, though they had begun basic preparations, they had no idea what they were preparing _for_. More than that, they also had been off-guard. Vampires had penetrated the school during daylight before, but it was very uncommon — generally lone scavengers, too ignorant or too stupid to range clear of the Slayer's home ground — and it had been months since any such intrusion. No one could track all the places where the city's maintenance tunnels fed into the SHS basement facilities; the invaders had apparently come up through those, and their attack was a devastating surprise.

If that hadn't been bad enough, Spike had been the one leading the raiding party.

Tucker and Nancy had been in the "rare books" cage when the vampires burst into the library. Nancy had yanked the door shut, locking them in, then she and Tucker had done their best to provide crossbow fire from their position of safety. Oz and Owen had gone up the stairs and fought from the second level, side by side and sometimes back-to-back, holding their ground with axe and mace and holy water and desperation. Giles had snatched up a broadsword, but fought only when directly pressed; instead, he bawled incantations at the top of his lungs, and his undead adversaries found themselves assailed from all directions by stakes, loose crossbow bolts, holy water vials, all coming at them from empty air …

Cordelia, listening, heard an almost imperceptible check in Marcie's voice, and knew what it meant. As many times practiced, Marcie had used Giles' sham spellcasting as cover to attack the invaders without revealing her presence, and an illogical part of her felt guilty for hiding the truth — to protect herself — while her friends fought for their lives. Giles had repeatedly stressed, however: _Never let anyone know you exist. You are a priceless asset to us, but knowledge that you are among us would remove much of that advantage. So long as your existence is unknown, you remain a 'secret weapon'._

To be sure, Angel had known about Marcie, and carried that knowledge with him when he returned to the dark side. She had begun to help them actively only within the last few months, however, and even then had done most of her work with Nancy and Giles. Besides that, she was easy to forget, the Hellmouth magic that rendered her invisible also keeping her less-than-solid in most people's memories, and so the Slay Friends had done all they could to keep from reminding the re-unsouled vampire that they had unseen aid. It was dumb for her to be ashamed — Marcie had accomplished more, even in that one fight, precisely because no one knew she was there — but Cordelia could understand it. So she just nodded and said, "Yeah, I get it, keep going," and Marcie continued her account.

Makeshift and haphazard though they were, the spur-of-the-moment tactics had been effective. Spike had come in with eight others; in barely over a minute, four of them were dust, and the survivors were beginning to hesitate and eye the doors. Then Spike had run out of patience with giving orders, and thrown a filing cabinet at Giles, smashing him backward into his office; when Owen moved as if to help Giles, one of his foes caught his arm and hurled him back into a row of bookshelves, which collapsed around him, and the same vampire landed a spinning kick on Oz that sent him crashing through the stair railing. As Oz hit the ground floor, a snarling trio had leaped in, ready to tear him apart … but Nancy, running out from the cage, had staked two from behind before the third one had wheeled on her and snapped her neck. A second later he was shrieking in agony, Tucker had flung their entire remaining supply of holy water on him and begun beating him with an empty crossbow, screaming and swinging until the broken bow-stave had pierced his enemy's heart.

In seconds, everything had tumbled into disaster. Marcie was the only one still on her feet (except Tucker, but he wouldn't have lasted five seconds against an unsurprised foe), and Spike still had one cohort beside him. He could have finished them easily … but instead had thrown his head back, an expression of horror on his face, and howled, _"Drusilla!"_ before dashing from the wrecked library, followed by the bewildered underling.

Tucker — and Owen, once they got him from under the toppled shelves — had helped Marcie carry everyone to the van. Marcie had taken the wheel to get them to the hospital; Owen, though able to move, was clearly dealing with yet another concussion, and Tucker had already begun to shift from shock to a dark rage.

They had brought Nancy, too. But, as they had known she would be, she was pronounced dead on arrival.

~ – ~ – ~

_I didn't even like her,_ Cordelia thought numbly. Truthfully, none of them had … except Tucker, and the girl had treated him with an offhand scorn that was no more than half-affectionate. All the same, Nancy Doyle had been a ferocious fighter, unskilled but unrelenting, and her courage — and even her caustic tongue — had won Cordelia's respect. Totally unlike her in every other way, Nancy had been as great a misfit among the Slay Friends as Cordelia, and she was the only one of them who treated Cordelia no differently on her ascension to Slayerhood: she despised her as thoroughly as before, and never hid it.

Now Nancy was gone, and her loss was an ache Cordelia couldn't have anticipated, hitting harder than she ever would have believed. And she couldn't show it; that would be weakness, and she didn't do weakness.

"Stick around," she told Marcie. "We'll see how the others are doing, and then —"

"Bite me, prom queen." Marcie's voice, characteristically low, was nonetheless perfectly clear. "I told you, you're nobody's boss now. You want something, ask for it … and ask nice."

Oh. Right. Marcie _had_ liked Nancy, at least more than she liked anyone else, courtesy of all those one-sided conversations in the clock tower before she'd been forced to abandon her isolation. "Do whatever you want," Cordelia shot back. "But, since you probably _want_ to stick around, what's the point of digging in your heels? If we're going to kill each other, there's always time. Right now, I'd rather check on my friends."

That said, she went seeking answers. Whether or not Marcie followed, Cordelia didn't know and didn't care. For the moment, she had more urgent things on her mind.

The two-phased arrival at the ER had necessitated a mini-triage; Cordelia found Oz waiting his turn, and stopped to speak with him. He was actually in worse shape than Owen — broken arm, broken ribs, dislocated shoulder — but Owen's concussion was more potentially serious, so Oz had willingly let Owen be moved in ahead of him. "Marcie just gave me the quick report," Cordelia told him. "How's everybody doing now?"

Oz looked to her, eyes glazed (whether from pain or painkillers, she didn't know), and said, "Nancy's dead."

"I know," she answered impatiently. "Like I said, Marcie told me. What about Giles? And Buffy, is there any news about Buffy?"

Oz blinked. "Buffy? She … she wasn't at the library …"

This was getting her nowhere. She found some ER staff and advised them that Oz, too, might better be checked for concussion, then went to the admissions desk and demanded information on the other new arrivals.

The woman at the desk was one of those by-the-book types. "Are you a family member?" she asked, tone forbidding.

"We're all friends," Cordelia told her, keeping her own voice assured and commanding. "I'm the one who brought in the second carload." (Nope, Dragon Lady wasn't buying it.) "And Giles is my uncle, my family got him the job at the library."

"You're hurt, too," the woman said, eyeing the bloody patch at Cordelia's shoulder where Drusilla had stabbed her. "Were you in the same …" She peered at the paperwork in front of her. "… gang fight, was it?"

"It's not my blood," Cordelia said. "She bled on me when I carried her to the car. Look, I'm okay, I just want to know how Giles and Buffy are."

" 'Buffy Summers'," the woman read, then glanced back up at Cordelia. "Are you part of _her_ family?"

_Do not kill the tinpot tyrant with the clipboard,_ Cordelia ordered herself sternly. "We're stepsisters. She kept her father's name, I kept mine, but we're really close. Like I said, I'm the one who brought her in. I know about the leg wound, I know she's lost a lot of blood, I just _don't know if she's still alive, and_ **I am really ready to do a total freak here —!"**

Dragon Lady relented, her desire to avoid a scene overriding her natural officiousness. "They're still working on her," she told Cordelia. "We don't know anything yet. But they're very good here with blood-loss cases."

Cordelia wasn't reassured; Buffy had lost a _lot_ of blood, and in the last minutes of the wild ride, Xander had been too busy to keep track of her pulse. "How about G– … Uncle Giles?"

"They think he has a broken back," the woman reported, "along with some internal injuries. They don't know yet if there's been any spinal cord damage."

Spinal —? Cordelia felt her face stiffening. "Will he be paralyzed?"

"As I said, they don't know yet." The woman's expression softened at Cordelia's obvious distress. "Your family and friends are in good hands. You got them here alive; in this town, that's most of the battle."

_We didn't get them_ **all** _here alive,_ Cordelia thought bitterly. But there was nothing to be gained by saying it, so she settled herself to wait for news.

~ – ~ – ~

Oz didn't have a concussion. Both Owen and Xander did, which left Xander still well ahead in the running tally, though Owen had passed Giles some months back. By the time Oz was treated, the police had arrived, wanting to know about the 'gang fight' that had killed one and hospitalized so many others … but their interest visibly drained when Willow spoke the magic words: "There was something wrong with their faces. All twisty, like movie monsters."

Giles was in recovery, his condition stable but guarded; they'd done quick surgery to remove a ruptured spleen, but were more concerned by the severe bruising on his spinal cord. Cordelia penetrated far enough to get a quick look at him — an obscene number of things were attached to him, though she supposed most were monitors of one type or another — but he was still unconscious from post-op medication, so she had an excuse not to linger.

About Buffy, she could learn nothing, except that the girl was still alive. The stepsister fiction had been abandoned as soon as Joyce Summers arrived; Cordelia couldn't bring herself to face the distraught woman, so she had hurriedly withdrawn. Oz had his shoulder put back into joint, his broken arm set, and the cracked ribs taped and then wrapped with an Ace bandage around his torso, but he declined further treatment. Willow helped him get to the room where Xander and Owen were being kept for observation, and Cordelia went with them for want of anything better to do.

Owen was quiet, not from his injuries but by his nature. Xander, also naturally, was anything but. He, too, had his ribs taped, and there was a cast around his wrist, not to mention stitches and steri-strips in far too many places … but his eyes were lit by manic fire, and his first words when they entered the room were, "How's Buffy? Is there any news yet? They won't tell me anything here —"

"They still don't know," Willow said. "They've got her stabilized, for awhile they were afraid she might lose the leg but that's okay now …" She made a little helpless motion with her hand. "Her blood volume is back up, her vitals are steady, right now they're waiting to see. Just like with Giles."

Xander nodded; yes, he'd been told about Giles' possible prognosis. "When do they think she'll wake up?"

"Sh-she … they're letting her rest right now, she's —" Willow bit her lip, flushing under Xander's gaze. She had no talent for lying … and, Cordelia knew, had never been able to hide anything from Xander. "They're still watching her," she finished lamely. "Maybe we'll know something tomorrow."

"Don't even try, Wil." Xander's mouth was set in a hard line. "You know something, you've got it printed on your face in MT Extra Bold. What aren't you telling me?"

"We all want to know," Cordelia said as Willow looked around for relief or escape. "This day isn't getting any better, so we might as well hear it now and deal with it."

"I just … I don't …" Willow shook her head. "I know it's dumb, but it's like I'm afraid that saying it out loud will make it come true."

"Make _what_ come true?" Xander demanded. "Come on, tell me!"

"I was with Joyce," Willow said. "And one of the doctors came to talk with her, and I wasn't eavesdropping except yes I was, he said that Buffy's heart had stopped by the time we got her here. They shocked her and got it going again, but they don't know how long she was gone and she'd lost so _much_ blood …" Willow looked to them again, this time with fear and anguish. "He said there's a strong possibility of brain damage. He said … she may never regain consciousness."

Silence. Three seconds, four, five. Then Xander's eyes turned to Cordelia, and he said flatly, "This is your fault."

Well, _duh!_ But that didn't mean she liked hearing him say it. "Yeah? How?"

"I wanted to do CPR. I was _begging_ you. But no, Queen C knows all the answers, _she_ has to be the one running the show —"

"Oh, get real!" She was past the verbal paralysis that had gripped her at the factory, and she didn't try to hide her scorn. "You're talking to the one who brought her back the last time, remember? CPR wouldn't have done any good, with that gash in her leg we'd have squeezed her out like a sponge if we'd tried. We got her here and we did it fast, and right then that was the best thing we could do for her."

"It's true." Willow moved to Xander's bedside, laid a hand on his arm. "You can remember how it was: she ran all the lights, she held Buffy's leg to slow the bleeding, she got you to do mouth-to-mouth — _not_ chest compressions, she was right about that, you never do those while there's still a pulse — she even had me call ahead so they were ready for her." She took Xander's hand, holding it in both of her own. "If we'd stayed at the factory, Buffy would have died at the factory. You may not want to admit it, Xander, but Cordelia did all the right things."

Xander shook his head, but his resolve was visibly dwindling. "There … there had to be a way —"

"Excuse me," Owen said softly. "I'm not looking to change the subject, but what were you all doing at the factory?"

"Spike and Drusilla were keeping me there," Xander explained. "They yanked me right out of school, dragged me through the tunnels … or at least a couple of their flunkies did. And Buffy came in to get me … she said you guys would be coming to help us fight our way out …" Xander's speech slowed, and he looked to Cordelia with perplexity. "Why did you send her in ahead? It should have been you … I thought she _was_ you, at first, she was wearing a wig and she'd done something with make-up …" He shook his head again. "I don't understand, it hurts to think. It just doesn't make any sense …"

"It was a double-snatch," Cordelia said, both to Xander and to the others. "They had Willow, too, except Angel was holding her at this old mansion. The idea was we'd hit both places at once, then the rest of the crew would go in to pull them out of the factory —"

"We were?" Owen frowned (gently, everything about him was gentle) and looked around for enlightenment. "News to me. Did anybody else know that?"

"Everything got scrambled," Cordelia admitted. "I thought it was _Willow_ at the factory, _Xander_ at the mansion, and I didn't know about the bunch that was going to attack the library until it was too late, they must have hit before you could get our message —"

"Wait a minute," Oz interrupted. "They had Willow? And you knew it? And you didn't tell us?"

Suddenly everyone was looking at Cordelia; even Willow's eyes widened in dawning realization. "Nobody knew?" she whispered. "They didn't know, about Xander or … or me, or any of it? Why? Why did you keep that a secret?"

_I had reasons,_ Cordelia wanted to say, but she could frame no explanation that didn't sound clumsy and feeble. _Buffy agreed with me, we did this together because we both thought it was the best way …_ No, that wouldn't fly, either. Xander's expression was darkening, Willow's beginning to sag in horror; Cordelia saw no condemnation from Owen, but no support, either, he just looked confused.

Oz didn't. Oz, who had always fielded her barbs with dry equanimity but no rancor, who had shown only interest and quirky humor at her most over-the-top behavior … Oz, the _Oz-est_ of all people, was regarding her with slate-flat eyes, and a silent, unmoving deadliness she had never before seen in him.

They wouldn't understand. She wasn't sure she herself did. And, with no ready defense against the accusation growing in that half-circle of battered faces, the current and reigning Slayer responded in the only way she could think of:

She fled.

~ – ~ – ~

The next several days were hard. Hard on Cordelia — alone at the school, all her friends either in the hospital or standing vigil there, so that she was the sole target for the rumors swirling about the attack on the library — and harder on the vampires she caught on her all-night patrols, those few who weren't deep in hiding. (There were rumors there, as well: that Spike had gone on a rampage among his followers, wreaking savage retribution on all who had allowed his beloved Drusilla to die.) She bore up; she had never been one to show weakness, and could least afford to do so now.

Xander and Owen had been pronounced fit, and released, but had stayed to keep watch with Oz and Willow: two with Giles, two with Buffy, taking turns to go home and shower and change clothes and return. Giles, too, was out of danger now, but he couldn't move his legs. There was still hope that he might regain function, that the nerve pathways had been blocked by bruising, rather than severed, but that hope was being expressed in increasingly guarded terms. He was awake, alert, in good condition (aside from the lower paralysis) … but grieving over Nancy's death, and even more stricken by the word about Buffy. The former Slayer was still comatose, unresponsive to stimuli, and any change for the better was now considered a very distant possibility.

Ironically, it was from Marcie that Cordelia got her hospital updates. Maybe the invisible girl liked seeing Cordelia demoted to outcast status, or maybe she just understood how that felt; she didn't show any sympathy, however (which was good, Cordelia couldn't have tolerated it right now), she merely called every afternoon from the hospital to pass along the news, or lack of it.

It was a holding pattern, and they both knew it. When it broke, Marcie again was the messenger. "You need to come down here," she told Cordelia. "They want to see you."

Cordelia's heart lurched, and she herself couldn't have said if it was from hope or dread. "Is it Buffy?" she asked. "Has she —?"

"No, it's not that," Marcie said. "No change there. We're just ready to hash some things out … and Giles isn't getting around so well right now, thanks to you, so we're all meeting in his room." She paused, and then added evenly, "You might want to have some explanations ready."

_Right,_ Cordelia thought. _'Cause it's not like I'll have any problems with _**that.**


	6. Part 6

Part VI

There was no way of knowing how this would go, but she steadied herself as thoroughly as she could before stepping into Giles' hospital room. The others were all there: Xander, Willow, Oz, Owen … there was no obvious evidence of an invisible person in the vicinity, but somehow Cordelia didn't think Marcie would skip this one. "All right, here I am," she said. Face calm, voice firm, the picture of control. "I understand you have some questions."

Giles nodded toward an empty chair. "You'd best take a seat, Cordelia."

She had expected to be shocked by his appearance. She wasn't. He looked thoroughly beat-up, but she'd seen that before, nor was there any sign of the wrenching grief he had shown after Miss Calendar's death. He had the hospital bed cranked up to a sitting position, so she didn't even have to deal with the sight of him in a wheelchair. Even so, there was something disturbing about him, a subtle, spooky absence of emotion, and his voice held a detachment several steps beyond his normal reserve.

Cordelia didn't let her new uneasiness show. She sat in the indicated chair, and asked, "So, how do we kick off this little _soirée_?"

"From the first, there has been a certain confusion," Giles began. "Events overtook us before we truly realized that they were in motion, and I now understand that these events transpired at no less than three separate locations. I was at the library, of course, so by comparing accounts with Willow and Xander — and to a lesser extent, with our fellows — I have reconstructed a partial timeline." His eyes fixed on Cordelia. "It cannot be more than partial, because certain facts are known only to you … and this, in turn, is because you concealed them from us."

Okay, going pretty much as she had thought it might, and she was about to respond when Willow said earnestly, "This is serious, Cordelia. We're not here to blame you, nobody's looking to pass judgment. We're on your side … mostly. But we have some serious problems with, with the way you did things."

Not passing judgment? Really? Cordelia was getting an entirely different sense from the room. Fine, she'd never been one to go begging for pity. "There actually is an explanation," she told them.

"Well, that's a relief." Xander, he was showing some of the haggardness she had half-expected to see in Giles, and frozen pizza was no colder or flatter than his voice. "Because here I was thinking you set us up to die just for the novelty of it."

The temptation to strike back was hideously compelling — never been one to take abuse without protest, not Cordelia Chase! — but she suppressed it, and was about to answer when Willow broke in, addressing the others. "Remember the rules we talked about," she told them. "Keep things reasonable, stick to 'I' statements. 'I feel confused.' 'I feel disappointed.' "

"Look," Cordelia began, "I know intervention language when I hear it, and this is not —"

"I've got some." Marcie's voice; yep, she was here. "I feel mad as hell. I feel like kicking some May Queen ass. Anybody see one of those around anywhere?"

Again Cordelia had to rein in her temper. "You've got questions," she said. "I understand that, I'm here to answer them. But if you want to turn this into an inquisition, bring it on."

"It could be arranged, you know." Contrasted with Xander's seething sarcasm and Marcie's open anger, Giles simply sounded … bleak, and suddenly far more scary than she had ever suspected he could be. "You are quite correct, you have much to answer for. It would be to your advantage to recognize that we are attempting to be … civilized … in our inquiries." Owen shot him a sidelong look; Cordelia was perhaps not the only one disquieted by this new side to Giles. Unconcerned, Giles continued. "There was a systematic offensive being mounted against our group. It is clear that you knew of this, and chose to hide that information from us. We would be very much interested in hearing your reasons — such as they may be — for behaving in such a … an arrogant fashion."

Arrogant, right. Now she was back on familiar ground, that was what people always said when you didn't think their opinion was better than yours. "It was a judgment call," she said. "Things went wrong, and yeah, I'd do it different if I had it to do again. But you know how these things go: you're in a situation, and you're the one who has to make the choice —"

"We were _all_ in the 'situation'," Xander interrupted. He was leaning so far forward in his chair, it looked like he was about to jump at her. "It wasn't just you, we were all lined up in the same shooting gallery. So how was it _your_ decision?"

Cordelia heard her voice go up an octave: "This wasn't …" She caught herself, made a little gesture of frustration. "Okay, first of all, you and Willow weren't in the loop at all. There was no way to share information with you, unless you suddenly figured out how to do the Vulcan mind-meld from a distance … which, okay, I wouldn't put that kind of thing past Willow, but still. This whole business was about you, rescuing the two of you, that's what Buffy and I were —"

"See, now, there's something I never really understood," Owen said, un-aggressively as ever but still insistent. "How exactly did Buffy figure into this?"

"We were working it together," Cordelia explained. "They had Xander and Willow at two different locations, so we split it between the two of us —"

Invisible or not, the sneer was there in Marcie's voice. "And it was just coincidence that you took the place where your vampire ex was waiting."

"That's not why I went there," Cordelia protested. (Oh, God, she was sounding defensive now. That would _not_ do.) "I went because … well, who _else_ would you want to send against Angel?"

"Let me give that some thought," Xander said. "Wait, here's a suggestion: how about, for instance, anybody who _wouldn't_ run off and leave him alive, just when she had him cornered?"

She had been getting flustered — they kept interrupting, coming at her from all sides, they wouldn't let her tell her story! — but these words were like a hard slap in the face. So Willow had told them … and either hadn't fully explained the urgency of the circumstances, or hadn't truly understood it herself. "It wasn't like that," she said, struggling for composure. "I had him, you're right, but then he said something that made me realize there was a third group ready to attack the library, or maybe they'd done it already —"

"Yeah," Oz said. "The library. Where we were waiting, 'cause you'd had Buffy ask us to wait. Only we didn't know why. And we didn't know about any attack. We didn't really know anything … and that's back on you."

Just like the last time, only a few days ago, it was Oz who brought her up short. He had spoken quietly, softly, his eyes never wavering from hers … Funny that she'd never really noticed those eyes before. She'd seen the same look on a lioness at some cheesy safari park when she was twelve: totally relaxed, totally calm, almost bored, and you knew that you'd be bloody brunch if you stepped three feet from the Land Rover. She floundered, unable to find any words that made sense, and Willow moved into the gap.

"Cordelia," she said, as if reading from a class paper, "I'm sure you thought you were doing the right thing. But, when it comes to Angelus — to Angel — well, your judgment hasn't always been the best. We need to talk about what that means, and what we should do about it."

_"This isn't about Angel,"_ Cordelia insisted. "It wasn't that way, I swear! Look, yes, he was trying to run one of his games on me. But I knew that, I was totally in control, Buffy and I were going to turn it around on him. I knew what I was doing!"

Xander stood up suddenly, his face working. "Did _she_ know? Did you fill Buffy in on your plans? Did she have any idea she'd be stuck in that crummy factory, waiting for a rescue party that didn't even know they were supposed to be rescuing anybody?" The raw loathing in his voice was shocking, obscene. "You couldn't even let her fight as herself. It wasn't enough to send her out alone, no, you had to try to make her over into you. That's all you've ever wanted, to be the center of attention, to have everybody worshipping you and wanting to imitate you … So there she is, done up like a cheap copy of you, when _you're_ the imitation, _you're_ the substitute Slayer! Is that what you wanted? _Was _**that**_ your plan?"_

And Cordelia saw it, as if it were written out in huge type: he would never forgive her for this. He couldn't. Buffy had gone into the factory to save him, and now she was in a coma because he hadn't been able to protect her, and without someone else to fix it on, he would have to turn all that searing blame in on himself. He _needed_ to hate her.

"That's enough," Giles said. "Everyone. We're here for a purpose, and we've yet to see to it." He looked to Cordelia. "You made decisions that affected all of us, without allowing us a voice in the matter. More than that, you deliberately concealed vital information from us, with results that …" He faltered, wavering for the barest instant; then his jaw firmed, and he went on as steadily as before. "Even had events concluded without injury to any of us, that would still have been a highly irresponsible act. As it is, we have suffered grievously from the effects of your … unconscionable presumption, and there must be an accounting."

It had been only a fraction of a second's lapse, but in it Cordelia had seen a glimpse of the pain that lay underneath, and knew without asking that it was due far more to Buffy's condition than to his own prospects. She was horrified to feel tears beginning to well up; she forced them back with savage will, and said, "There was more to it than that, you haven't let me tell how it was. We had a _plan,_ and sure, I should have brought you in on it sooner, but I couldn't have told you they'd come after you at the library because I didn't _know_ about it." She looked around at the others, seeking some sign of understanding. "We couldn't take any of you with us. Angel had said I had to choose between Xander and Willow, pick which one I'd try to save, and he said they'd both be killed if anybody but me showed up. We were trying to save both of them, Buffy and me together. You have to believe me, it was never supposed to turn out this way."

Even as she said the last words, she could see they left her open for a devastating retort. It didn't come; instead, Giles glanced over, said, "Owen?", and held out his hand. Owen reached over and picked up a small spiral notebook from the bedside table, handed it to Giles. Giles opened the cover, turned a couple of pages, adjusted his glasses, and began to speak again.

"The patient records show that we reached this hospital at 4:42 PM. You arrived with Buffy only three minutes later; in fact, they thought at first that _we_ were the emergency for which they had been alerted. Given that Spike's sudden departure from the library seems to have been prompted by an awareness of Drusilla's final demise — perhaps she sent out a psychic cry to him at the moment of her dissolution — it's obvious that we at the library, and you at the factory, were fighting at the same moment."

"That makes sense," Cordelia admitted, not sure where this was going.

"The facts, then, are that you launched a personal raid on the mansion, killed the vampires resident — except for Angelus, of course — retrieved Willow, and drove to the factory, where you engaged Drusilla at essentially the same time Spike began the attack at the library." Giles removed his glasses, and looked to Cordelia with unnerving directness. "Taking into account the time you spent fighting Angelus and his lackeys, and the further time required to drive to the factory, there was a period of something like twenty minutes between your entry into the mansion and the time we were set upon."

That long? Cordelia hadn't really thought about it, she'd assumed Angel must have called orders for the third team to strike as soon as he knew she was in the mansion. But, "Why were you still there, then? I sent my message to you before I went into the mansion, I made _sure_ of it. And there was the other message before that, telling you what to get ready for, you should have all been on your way to the factory by the time I found Willow."

Giles' gaze never flickered. "We received no such message. There had been no communication from either of you since Buffy called to tell us that you wanted us to gather, and to await further word. We were, in fact, beginning to worry when Spike's band broke in; school had been dismissed for an hour by then."

Cordelia realized that her mouth was hanging open. "But … I did, Giles, I _swear_ I did! I sent one message when I left Buffy at the factory — that was the one explaining what was going on, telling you all to get ready, you'd need to go in after her — and another one at the mansion, saying where to go. Buffy and I worked it out together, I sent it as a text, I _watched_ it go through."

"Text?" Giles tilted his head slightly. "The library phone isn't configured to receive text messages."

"I know. That's why we sent it to Nancy's phone. And even if something stopped my call, Buffy was supposed to send the same message —"

She saw startlement on Owen's face, but Marcie was the one who spoke: "Nancy said something about her phone, didn't she?"

Owen nodded slowly. "Yeah. She forgot to turn off the ringer, she got a call during third period and Ms Frank confiscated it. Nancy was supposed to pick it up at the office after school, but she forgot. I remember, she was complaining about that to Tucker …" He stopped.

"And now the picture comes into focus," Xander said. "You sent your battle orders, all right; you just sent them to the second drawer of Snyder's desk." His mouth twisted in what couldn't remotely be called a smile. "Oh, yeah, you had all the angles covered, all right."

Cordelia looked about her, stunned and helpless, finding no pity in the room. Owen looked embarrassed, Willow reproachful, and from there it went downhill fast. "I … I didn't …" She swallowed. "I'm sorry. I didn't know. Oh, my God …"

"Yes," Giles said; quietly, softly, remorselessly. "You took it upon yourself to make all the decisions, and robbed us of the ability to do the same, or even to know that decisions were needed. To hinge your plans on a single, less-than-reliable avenue of communication was an appalling tactical error, one I'd have been only too happy to point out, had I been given the opportunity. I wasn't. None of us were. You treated us as subordinates, as … as spear-carriers in your personal drama, and it was we who paid the price for your overweening hubris."

His next words were even more shocking. "You are not a Slayer." She stared, and he went on. "We call you by that name, for want of a better, but we have seen that the mantle went to Kendra upon …" He paused, took a deep breath. "… upon Buffy's brief death. Though the heritage passed you by, however, you somehow acquired the physical attributes of a Slayer; and, because the Hellmouth remained an active threat, I attempted to school you in the responsibilities of a role that was not rightfully yours.

"This approach must be reconsidered." He closed the spiral notebook and laid it flat on his lap. "I shall report the particulars of this incident to the Council of Watchers, with my recommendation that they send someone to assess the situation here and make recommendations of his own. They may wish, upon hearing the facts, to dismiss me from my position; if that is the case, I will accept their decision.

"What is to be done with you is a different matter." He spoke as coolly as if he had asked her to pass the salt. "If they determine that you still are to be accorded Slayer status, you will be under their authority. If not, your power places you well within their purview, and thus answerable to them. In either case, you will be held responsible for your actions … which sanction, by all the evidence, you have never placed upon yourself.

"You may consider yourself duly notified. And, that done, you may leave now."

She was too shaken to argue, too aghast at the realization of how horribly she had blundered. She walked out of the room, numb, and down the hall without really registering her surroundings.

Bad as it had been when she knew they blamed her, this was far worse. They were _right_ to blame her. It truly was her fault. Giles crippled, Nancy dead, Buffy … Buffy …

Someone was behind her, she whirled in readiness to strike and it was Owen. "Hey," he said, watching as she lowered the hand she had been ready to spear through his chest. "That was kind of rough in there. Thought I'd see how you were doing."

She was ashamed of how pathetically grateful she felt, and it sharpened her tone. "You don't want to take your turn knocking me down and walking on me with big cleat-y shoes?"

Owen shook his head. "You messed this one up, Cordy. Messed it up bad. They've got a right to be mad at you." He sighed. "But I won't freeze you out. That wouldn't help anything, it'd just be mean. You need to talk, I'm here."

Cordelia leaned back against the wall, closed her eyes. "I can't," she said. "I mean, thanks, I appreciate the offer, and maybe I'll take it once I get my feet back under me, but right now I'm totaled."

"Any time," Owen said. "I guess I'll see you at school, then."

She didn't say anything as he walked away. After a minute, she continued down the hall, still trying to come to grips with that sense of awful unreality.

Her feet took her toward the area where Buffy was being kept, and she realized that she hadn't actually seen Buffy since delivering her to the ER doors. What would she look like? Sleeping Beauty? Snow White in that glass coffin? She tried to imagine, and once again her mind wouldn't take hold.

Across from the nurses' desk for this section, Joyce Summers passed through Cordelia's field of vision. She looked older than Cordelia remembered, and carried — of all things — a plush stuffed pig. Cordelia watched, noted which room the woman entered, took a hesitant step forward …

She couldn't. She couldn't bear the thought of facing Joyce's condemnation … or, worse, having it not be there when she knew it was deserved. She had done this, she had brought them to this point: her actions, her decisions, and nowhere else to put the blame.

Against one wall was a row of four chairs, presumably for visitors. Cordelia went to them, and sat in one, and waited for she knew not what.

~ – ~ – ~

_People were always saying that real life wasn't like stories. They were only half-right. Show a girl that monsters were real, and then give her superpowers, and then hit her with plot twists that would flabbergast O. Henry … well, it was understandable if she started wondering whether fiction might give her some pointers on how to deal with an existence that was so-much-stranger-than._

_The problem was, there were no storybook heroines (or film, or TV, or even comics) whose example pointed to anything productive. Their stories were their own, and they might be fun and even uplifting, but they didn't draw much of a map for deciding what to do next. This wasn't a matter of surviving (got that one down already) or even of overcoming formidable enemies (again, there ahead of you); this was about putting things straight, of correcting a terrible mistake, and for this there were no ready role models._

_No, she was on her own. Whatever path she was going to follow, she'd have to chart it herself._

_She would fix this. She would make it right, make it _**be**_ right._

_She would._

_She had to._

_She was the queen._

—

end

* * *

_Special acknowledgment:_ Yes, the 'intervention' scene in this chapter was patterned after the one in the _Buffy_ Season 3 episode "Revelations", written by Doug Petrie. Though I didn't directly use his words, I freely followed the pacing and general flavor of the scene, on the theory that a parallel timeline will contain some events that parallel the original.  
_— Aadler_


End file.
